001Good evening and welcome to the November 5th board of education meeting for the Chester Union Free School District. Mrs. Ayanuzi, can you please take role? >> Please respond when I call your names.io >> present. >> Mrs. Johnson >> present. >> Mrs. Ken >> presuming. >> Thank you, Mrs. Newsie. Can we please stand for the pledge of allegiance? >> 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. Can I please have a motion to adopt tonight's agenda? >> I'll make that motion. I'll second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Motion pass. Can I please have a motion to approve board meeting minutes of October 22nd, 2025? >> I'll make the motion. >> I'll
002second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Motion pass. Before we begin tonight's wonderful presentation, I would like to share on behalf of the board how we are going to conduct public comment this evening. Good evening and welcome. We appreciate you joining us this evening for the presentation on the proposed intercolastic athletic facility capital project. Please note that the purpose of tonight's meeting is to present information to our community and to listen to your comments, questions, and concerns. We welcome your thoughts and your feedback and want to ensure that every voice is heard. To allow time for all who wish to speak, we ask that comments be kept to approximately three minutes. Rather than timing each individual speaker, a total of 30 minutes has been allocated for each public comment section this evening. All questions
003and comments shared tonight will be captured and reviewed. Common questions not already addressed in our frequently asked question FAQ will be added. You can find our FAQ organized by topic on our website at and our website. Anyone who did not have the opportunity to share a comment or question may also reach us through the dedicated email address at intercolastic doathletic projectfree school district.org. We encourage you to attend one of our upcoming community forums on November 12th or 19th, which will provide a more informal setting for discussion and questions. If you would like to meet us to further discuss your input on this project, please contact Lindseay Ayanuzi at 845469-5052 to schedule a time to meet with Superintendent Katherine O'Hara and our team. Thank you again for being here this evening and for your continued engagement
004and support of our students, our schools, and the future of the Chester community. And with that, our first presentation this evening is Mrs. Bo B. Good evening. I want to make sure not to disrupt this laptop. Um, thank you for having me, Superintendent O'Hara, Board of Education. and I'm happy to be here tonight and present all the things that we did in October, which we were extremely busy at CES in October, but we had uh lots of fun, lots of learning um and lots to report to you all. So, I'm going to jump right in. Um so, our goals uh linked to district goal number one, um CES had a schoolwide PBIS assembly on October 30th. Students were celebrated for earning chips in the areas of being respectful, responsible, ready, and safe. Uh, whole groups
005of students, grade levels, and buses earned golden awards for their positive behaviors in different areas of the school, including the cafeteria at recess, preparedness for school and PE, and behavior on the bus. Uh, we had an adjustment to our winner circle award this year. Um it has um been made and the award students received this year in P is a PBIS winners circle bracelet that says CES winner circle on one side and 2025 2026 on the other side. Students that make it into the winner circle by earning 10 chips in each category, responsible, respectful, ready, and safe um will earn a chance to be in the winner circle at that month's assembly um and awarded with a bracelet. Uh in the past, we had a winter circle magnet that was distributed and you can see
006those around Chester um and families will proudly display them on their cars and things like that. Um the shift in this was a little more of how we could show our success in school. And uh the idea is that kids can continuously earn their way into the PBIS winner circle. So they will be collecting many bracelets and showing off their achievement. Um and in fact we already had three students in the first assembly that won two bracelets. So they already got 20 chips in each category in the short two months that we've been in school. So that's quite an accomplishment and we are anticipating that we will see lots of kids with lots of armwear to show off um their PBIS winner circle achievements. Um CES goals linked to district goal number two. Uh our
007community and career partnerships are underway at CES. The goal of the partnerships with community members is to connect what students are learning in school now to the real life uses of these skills in various professions. To do this, we have various members of the community and from the general area visit and present to or do activities with our students to exemplify how they use skills they learned in elementary school in their profession or career as adults. All grade levels and classes will secure at least one community or career partner to work with their class or grade level this year. Um this has been ongoing for the past two years. So we are in our third year of community and career partnerships. So far we have had Mrs. Cabrero who is the ENLE replacement in the
008building introduce kindergarten students to dreamcatchers and their importance within the indigenous culture. Mrs. Mrs. Cabrero read the story Grandmother's Dreamcatcher and taught students how to make their own dream catcher. Mr. Alonso visited third grade to discuss his job as an um HVAC and a firefighter and how he uses math, ELA, writing and science daily within his day um within his employment. Um CES also had a successful fire prevention day which also does tie into our community career partnerships. Um, on October 10th, the local firefighters joined us for lunch with students. They went and they played with the kids in PE out at recess. They were in the hallways. Many of them are Chester graduates and they were reminiscing about their time in the elementary school and how it looked just the same. Um, and they
009were a bit nostalgic. Uh they helped facilitate a fire drill and then they did presentations for the grade level groups outside around different fire apparatus they used while working as firefighters. Miss Quackenbush, one of our fifth grade teachers, even took a ride several stories high in the rescue ladder as students cheered on from below. She was very brave. Um Steam night was another event that we had this past month and it was a huge success. Uh, we had approximately 400 people attend our steam night. This is by far our largest success at this event yet. Mrs. Randy coordinated such an amazing event where students and families could engage all over the school with different activities. There was robot programming to pick up different things in the mini maker space. other robot challenges in the large
010maker space where you had to roam around the surface of the moon with a robot uh and avoid um different craters and rocks on the moon surface. There were opportunities for learning facts about space and then sharing them in the in sharing them with different staff members in exchange for stamps on your space passport. Uh there were Alka-Seltza Alka-Seltzer rockets in the gym, constellation casters to bring home, more robots, and the Star Lab in the library. The line down the hall for a star lab was impressive and long. Um, everybody wanted to get into that star lab. Kids got to get into the star lab all week during robotics classes. We had it for an entire week. Mrs. Randy got trained on how to function in the star lab and how to do a presentation.
011I joined a kindergarten class. It was awesome. Um, and the whole event was and week was a tremendous success and u, Miss Reny really did an amazing job. Um, and it was really nice to see our CES students and families come out to have fun learning at school on a Thursday night. I mean, totally amazing. CES goals linked to district goal number three. Uh the CEUFSD districtwide newsletter included a page from the elementary school and uh included some of the things that I've shared tonight. Uh the second fifth grade parent meeting was held October 27th and updates on fundraising for the end of the year events was discussed. The next meeting will be January 12th in November. We will be de identifying our fifth grade student representatives that I will work with throughout the rest
012of the year. Um, the PTA and SEPSA continue to support initiatives at CES. Both organizations supported picture day with volunteers, the book fair, the PTA organized trunk or treat and were present present and supportive at steam night. Um, another community event that is especially well attended and celebrated every year is the CES Halloween parade. There was some threat of bad weather. Thankfully, we avoided uh it was drizzling that morning when I was driving to work and I was thinking about, oh boy, if we have to cancel this. Thankfully, we did not. Uh it was windy, but all the students wore their costumes with pride to school and showcase them for all their families and friends in our parade. We also had a drum line welcome. Miss Hasseni brings the drum line on Halloween. And as
013students are exiting the buses on Halloween morning in their costumes, they are literally dancing into the building. So, it is a very fun day and it was very successful. Um, CES goals linked to district goal number four. Uh, CES has completed five successful fire drills since school started. We even had an unexpected one during our PBIS assembly. Uh, we do often talk during those assemblies about what we would do if there was a drill during an assembly and uh, we unexpectedly got to practice that. also in the rain the day before Halloween. Um the students and the staff uh did amazing and the building was cleared in record time partly because we were all in the same space. Um but they really did excellent. Um they all received a safe chip uh from me in
014recognition of their efforts. Uh a message went out to the families informing them of the circumstance and we got the building cleared and students were able to return to the assembly very quickly. Uh and then we just proceeded with our assembly like it didn't even happen. It was really um amazing to see how flexible everybody was and um they did a great job. We will continue to complete required drills throughout the school year. Um lastly, uh the cluster doors have been installed um over the evenings of October 29th and 30th as part of the capital safety project. Um new um safety training took place with staff on October 31st. So doors installed, training the next day. Um and we are getting used to the protocols within the building um that have shifted with doors in
015place. Uh and we will be practicing lockdown procedures utilizing the new systems and procedures soon. And that's all I have for tonight. It was busy month. I'll take any questions. >> Any questions for Mrs. B? >> No questions. I'm glad that Steam night was such a huge success. It's a great way for the community to really see what's happening in the school for parents to see their children interacting with the other children and the staff and just get inside the building a little bit. I'm so glad you had great turnout. >> I I am as well. Um, we did have families signing in, but they were signing in like next to their student, so it wasn't an accurate number of how many people actually came. Um, so I actually watched the cameras of the entrance
016of the building and over the time frame it was a little over 400 people entered the building and it was like a rolling arrival the whole time because the instructions were come and expect to spend about 30 minutes. So come within that time frame and spend your 30 minutes. Um it was it was really it was really great. Um and I can't wait for next year's >> was very impressive and again thank you for your thorough report. >> Of course. Thank you >> Mr. Flanigan. Thank you for uh for having me come up here for my report tonight. Um first and foremost, just uh I'm so surprised so many people showed up tonight to hear my report. Thank you everybody. I appreciate that. [laughter] Uh so uh we're into November. It's hard to believe we're
017already moving along here. Just a quick note for anybody that's watching or anyone here. Uh parent view on the academy side is back up. It was down for a few days. We had to do some work on the back end. Um, so it is back up for viewing for anybody that would like to see that. Um, just a couple of updates. So on Monday, uh, Monday the 10th is actually a big day here. So we have the Greenwood Lake Middle School students visiting us. There are approximately 42 eighth graders from Greenwood Lake coming to Chester Academy. We're going to tell them a little bit about our program, introduce them to some of our teachers and some of our our students, show them around our building, and uh you know, and just really help them understand
018the some of the great things that happen here at Chester. So, we're excited to invite them. Um we look forward to seeing them um as as they're you know, and and when they make their choice, regardless of whatever the best choice is for them, we know that those that come here will find Chester to be home. So, we're excited. Also on the on Monday the 10th is our Veterans Day assembly. So we're going to be running our our um advisory bell schedule. The reason we're running that is our advisory bill. When we have advisory, we move up our periods by three minutes each to allow us an additional period at the end of period 9 and that allows us to have time for our advisory. So we're really excited about our advisor about our Veterans
019Day assembly. I'll be honest with all the assemblies I do every year, I think that this is the most important one that we do because we're honoring those that have ultimately, you know, been out there and served our nation and sacrificed for us. And I think it's important to really for students to see that we have veterans come into our um to our assembly. Um our our students make cards for them, they make gifts for them, they bake for them, they do a lot of different things. Our our band is amazing. They they play the armed forces medally. they play taps and we we really try and do something that that makes the veterans feel that they, you know, that that we appreciate them and and we want them to know that. And so, thank
020you in advance to anyone watching, any veterans that are coming. And I always encourage, you know, students as well, if you have a veteran in your family, um, you know, and and you'd like to honor them, you know, let us know and we'll we can have them. We can we'll put out an extra seat. So, we're we're excited about that. It's very important day. Um, you know, we're we are getting close. Uh we're only a little over a week away from Matilda Jr. So we're excited about Matilda Jr. Uh directed by Mrs. Scally. Um tickets have been on sale. Mrs. Scally started ticket sales in advance um mostly online. She did have a red carpet ticket sale event for students that wanted to buy u during lunch periods and additional tickets for if there's anything
021remaining will be sold at the door as well. A big thank you in this for Miss uh Jenna Melroy who's really been helping out. She's a parent in our community and she's really been helping out with the with the ticketing site which is called Seat Yourself. So, thank you to to Jenna and to all the students. Their hard work is paying off. I come in every now and then. I peek my head in. Sometimes I'll peek my head in through the balcony and it's amazing. And uh so I'm I'm looking forward to watching it and once they get through their performance, who knows, maybe we'll we'll invite them back to one of our meetings here to perform a number for us. So, that'll be exciting. Um, our our we had our National Honor Society induction
022and we have our National Junior Honor Society induction um coming up actually tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. So, we're looking forward to this is a this is one of our larger NJHS inductions. It's been growing over the years. So, we have approximately 20 students that are being inducted tomorrow night. Um, so we're really happy for them. I'm proud of them. They've worked hard and our students, a big thank you to the PTSA who supports that event as well. They come out, they help us serve refreshments. They help us, you know, make sure we have everything we need for that event. And Miss Alexis Mack who's the adviser who's done a great job making sure that we are on point and ready to go for everything. So, and the students, of course. Um, sorry, I'm just flipping
023my page here. on on a couple of notes are once again I I've been keeping you updated on our enrollment. The enrollment at Chester Academy is up once again in October another five students. We're up to 584 students at Chester Academy. So that number continues to grow. I do remember even just I I I believe uh you know less than two years ago that number was into the 530. So we are seeing a nice trend in growth amongst our student body. Um the fast night uh this was something that initially we had to move on the calendar and I'll be I've sent out one reminder I'll continue to send that out because people are very used to just looking at the calendar but the fast night will actually now be now on that's for seniors
024that are looking to come in for senior parents about filling out that FASA form. It's so important and we're going to start communicating with you as well as as per a New York State mandate that we're required to kind of put information out to assist you and help you fill out that FASA form. So, that night is going to be on December 1st at 6 PM. So, and that's going to be here at Chester Academy. So, we we're going to help you with that. Um, a couple of congratulations. First and foremost, um, some of our our athletes are doing an incredible job. We have our teams that have competed this year and Brooke was part of our our our teams and and she did a great job this year along with our girls soccer team.
025Um our volleyball teams. Um a big congrats to the boys soccer team. They went to our sectional playoff game. Um they did a nice job this year. Uh one of our the Chester swim team Johnson is still competing and she is going to be competing tomorrow at Valley Central High School um for in the counties. Correct. Yes. In the counties. And uh so we're excited for CL. So, I'm I I'm I'm rooting for her and and it would be amazing for a a school without a pool to bring home a a champion in in swim. So, great job, CL. Um we have our parent teacher conferences coming up uh on the 20 on the 20th and the 25th. And if anyone's having any any trouble, you know, scheduling their conference, it is a little different.
026We used PTC fast in in the past. I know we've talked to people. They're using the new parent view synergy to schedule. And we haven't received a ton of calls, but if you're having any trouble with it, just give us a call and we can help you with your scheduling. Um, oh, I left one thing out. Our varsity football team is also um doing a really nice job this year. They're 8-1 and they are the number one seed going into the playoffs. So, congratulations to varsity football. And um as a followup to last month, I talked a little bit about one of the challenges our students were working through with making sure they can leave a class, get to their locker to put their bag away and get to PE. And it's a change because
027we're keeping the bags out of the PE uh area based on the lockers aren't necessarily big enough to store them or not wanting to keep them in a hallway. The students are doing a nice job and they brought the concern to my attention and and I appreciate that. And we we we started with ideas on how to make it better and those ideas narrow down. So everyone's ideas it might have started with one idea and it it kind of winds up with an with somewhere in the middle that seems to be working for everyone. But it wouldn't be possible without students coming in and advocating for that and sitting down. So just a big thank you to a couple of people who have actually come in and sat with me. uh Nicholas Keegan, Alyssa Rojos,
028Lauren Higgins, and the student council um have come in and spent time. Shane Rivera, Taylor Aella, Mrs. Davis, who's the adviser. So, all of that happens when we sit down and put those ideas out there and start to come up with solutions together. So, thank you to everybody and uh I'll take any questions from the board. >> Thank you so much for your report. I think the only question that I had was with regard to the FASA night. Is that something that many of our parents are taking advantage of and coming in for? >> Um, so generally what we're finding on a fast night is we're receiving somewhere between and depends on the size of the class too because everything varies. Usually it could be anywhere from 15 to 25 different families that come in.
029Um, I I would love to encourage, you know, we have 90 families, 90 or so families in the senior class. I'd love to see them all here. Um, we can, you know, we'll find more chairs or go to a bigger space, but, you know, people are more than welcome to come in. And if there are specific questions that fam families might have, if they don't get here on that night, they could always reach out to Mrs. Sternan uh for any information. Usually the we work with a rep that comes in from Marist College that usually helps us out and helps the families navigate the whole fast process. >> I actually have a follow-up question to that. Um I know it had to be the date had to be changed this time around, >> but going
030forward, are there opportunities to do it earlier than even when that FASA opens just so parents are prepared a little bit ahead of time? We're so we want it to be early usually and that's and it's usually actually on the calendar earlier. So generally we're waiting for the college to be able to schedule us and that was the hard thing this year. We're working with Maris College where we're waiting to get on their schedule and they're doing it based on once the FASA information for the new year becomes available. I will 100% do our best to try and make sure we can get that earlier. I relate that to Mrs. tournament and we can also share that with our our partners at the university as well that hey we'd like to be as early as
031as we can be and they're they're great. They come in and they they are really excellent at uh you know at giving us information. So I'll relay that. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you everybody. That brings us to our main event this evening and a presentation on our capital project interscolastic athletic project presentation. I think Miss O'Hara is going to start us off. >> Thank you so much. Well, good evening everyone. Welcome. Thanks for being here tonight and thank you so much to uh anyone that's watching at home as well. Before we begin the presentation, I just wanted to take a moment to recognize and thank our parent representatives. We had our Chester Academy athletics advisory panel meet on Monday, October 27th. They received uh the first draft presentation and gave their input.
032The following day, our CUFSD, which is prek to 12 parent advisory panel, met on October 28th. They received a different draft presentation because it followed the input from the panel representatives the day prior. So, we really thank our our parents and uh know that uh this presentation that you see here this evening is a reflection of the input that was received from our parents. Um all presentations this evening will be available for review on our district website and there is a specific tab which we've mentioned numerous times. Um but I'll note again interscolastic athletic project it's on the top bar tab all the way to the right. Click on it. You've got all the information there. We encourage you to frequently visit that site for any updates that are provided. So with that, very excited
033to to begin this presentation to the board of education. So the new athletics uh facility, investing in our students, strengthening our community, and truly building Chester's future together. Uh everything we do here in the district aligns to our mission, vision, and district goals. This in particular, expanding opportunities for our students, our staff, our families, and our community. prioritizing, which you'll hear this evening, safety and security throughout our schools and facilities. You'll also hear about creating connections that bring our schools and community together, investing responsibly in the growth of our school and community, and certainly building Chester's future together. So, all of this will lead to a capital project vote scheduled on Tuesday, December 16th from 8 to 9:00 p.m. in the Chester Academy band room. And we really feel this is an opportunity to celebrate
034Chester W Chester Pride communitywide. So this evening uh what I will share is an overview uh basically the scope, design and vision of the project, fiscal responsibility and long-term value. What the timeline of the project is and how did we get here? What's all of the work that has been done leading up to this moment? Uh why does it matter? Why does it matter to our students? Why does it matter to our teachers, staff? Why does it matter to our families? And why does it matter to our community? and then certainly your voice, your vote, our future and what is all of the community engagement opportunities leading up to the referendum. So the project in and of itself in terms of the the scope and the design you'll see on the far left uh yes
035it is your far left uh spectator steer uh tiered seating uh right built into the the land um in addition to the grand stand seating with the press box uh the fieldhouse with home and visiting team locker rooms, training room uh public restrooms and a concession stand. Um, more importantly over to the right in terms of access to the facility, single point of access, perimeter fencing, uh, which is not something that we currently have for, uh, the football team and and and folks that use the commons, which, uh, we're appreciative of the use of a rec recreational facility. So, I'll talk further about that single point of entry. Um, coming from the elementary school is specific only to ADA compliant and emergency access vehicles. That is only the entrance from the elementary school. General access
036to the site uh is provided on a pathway from Chester Academy uh which is lit with uh lighted for uh safety. The project also has an eight lane track surrounding a multi-purpose turf field. I mentioned perimeter spent uh fencing and I also mentioned uh again multi-purpose athletics field. So this lists all of those things. Certainly uh the design was built not only for students, staff and families but for community use as well. Um and again uh the the important component here um is that perimeter fencing um for the safety and security that really reflects the uh measures that we have in place in all of our buildings and facilities. This is an important aerial v aerial view. uh most of our families are interested well what's the exact location and what's unique to this project
037is it lands directly or it lands in between uh our Chester Elementary School and Chester Academy specifically um being a complex that is on site and what does that mean for our taxpayers that means that it's new has uh the ability to um take advantage of New York State building a um the former project uh located at uh Maple Avenue is not on our on our site and and for that reason we weren't able to take advantage of that. Um, so this gives you a little bit of a an overview of where the project is. And in addition, um, what I recently had stated, which you can see a little bit better here, is that accessibility uh, access road from the elementary school again for emergency access and ADA accessibility only. And then the main
038uh, path to the field with pedestrian lighting that's coming from Chester Academy. You can see it. It goes around the border of the varsity baseball field. And it's all of the uh work that has gone into this which Lamb Associates and the LA group will be speaking after my presentation more in detail. But it's really important to note um the the layout and the considerations in this project uh given the the land features has been [clears throat] extensive uh down to the pedestrian pathway being changed to uh present savings to the taxpayer. um and uh with that um taking into account wetlands that are on the facility. So you can see where the heritage trail is. Uh you can see the location in um context of uh Chester Academy, the varsity baseball field and then
039Chester Elementary School. Again, uh it is important to note and I typically don't read slides word for word, but this is an important one. So we we do truly appreciate our partnership with the town of Chester. uh they've long supported our athletic program, specifically football, and we certainly appreciate their partnership. It is important to know that the town of Chester and the Commons is a recreational facility. It is not a school district-owned site, and with that presents limitations for us as a district to manage safety and security. Um crowd management, it is a open access facility. If you visited uh the site there, uh you would know what I'm speaking to. And again, that's what it that's what it's for. It's a recreational facility, but we're a school district and and they are have been
040very welcoming to allow us to use their recreational site uh due to the fact that we don't have a football field. Um and and we often use it for other uh sports as well. Uh but primarily it's used to support recreational programs um which has impacts to the field um understandably. So in addition there's transportation logistics uh which are added costs for the district. Um there are concerns with regard to or challenges I should say for shelter uh in case of emergencies and then certainly uh limited access access to restrooms and team facilities. Um you'll see our team uh football and halftime go into the woods. Um it is a recreational facility. It it's not designed for a school site. Um, so the proposed district-owned facility does address these challenges through a single secure point
041of entry, perimeter fencing, and a fieldhouse, dedicated home and visiting team spaces, public restrooms, secure storage, truly creating a safe and efficient and welcoming environment, not only for our students, staff, and families, but also for our community. And here's some of the renderings uh presented to us through the LA group in partnership with LAN Associates. So you can see um the the layout of the facility. You can see the tiered seating in to the left of the grandstand seating and press box. Here's another viewpoint. And then here you can get a little bit uh better visual in terms of um the location of the facility in and of itself. um that being Chester Elementary School um closer to in this particular view. And if you look um towards the right, you're able to see again
042to the right of the grandstand seating, the fieldhouse, and you'll see in another picture a little bit better right here that single point of entry. Right. So, you have the the larger uh roadway that allows emergency access vehicles to uh be on site. um ADA compliant for anyone that has uh trouble accessing. Um we would have um smaller vehicles to transport um handicap or otherwise. And then the uh pathway lighting uh which you can't see very clearly here, but all connect into that one single point of entry which supports our our safety and security protocols of the project. uh all of the pathways, excuse me, this the the pathway from the Chester Academy uh would be lit. So there's no issue with safety. Um it's wonderful for our community members that and and any of
043our families that uh walk the heritage trail, the path. Um and this is an opportunity um for community members um at designated times to access the facility uh for use in addition to our students. That's just additional view there. And I think it's important to say um with this project that And you'll you'll see a little bit uh later in a video that's shared that we are one of the few if not only uh district in the region that doesn't have a facility like this to offer our students. And I'll make a point of this later, but but it is important to think about. We've had Mr. Flanigan mentioned, you know, our our population, our current demographics and and the number of students coming to Chester. And um we've had uh many students who have
044who have recently come to our district. But if you think about a family coming outside of Orange County and making the decision what school am I going to go to? I would uh put our academics against most of our partner districts in the area. And we are unique in that we're able to we're a small school. We have um small classroom sizes which is unique to our district. That's something that would set us apart when a family comes to Orange County and thinks about Chester versus another district. What we don't have is facilities to support our students. And it's not just student athletes. It's not just musicians, which you'll hear about later. It's also every single student that attends our school. You all remember when you went to school and that pride that you felt
045when you go to an event. And this is a a bigger picture than just a facility. It's a bigger picture than just something for our students, uh for our families. what is the impact that it would bring to the Chester community? And I ask you to consider that um as I as we present this. Here's another view of the fieldhouse. As you can see, there's several people enjoying it already uh concession stand and again that that single point of entry. So, getting right down to your question and what's important to our community members and our taxpayers. Fiscal responsibility and long-term value. Investing today to strengthen Chester's future for generations to come. 26.9 million capital project. Important to note that it strategically leverages 6 million in capital reserves previously approved by the voters and an estimated,
046as I mentioned, because it's on site, because it's uh on property owned by the district, an estimated 6.6 6 million in New York State building aid to offset the cost to the taxpayer. Another thing important to note is all of our partners in due diligence leading up to this uh presentation um from the LA group to LAN Associates and Triton Construction in particular in uh multiple different designs and working together as a a collaborative team uh in where exactly the facility could be located on the property which is not flat. So, it's a challenging uh design to put together. Um, but everything from uh tweaking the property, which would result in perhaps less retaining walls or quite honestly uh recently the pathway for pedestrians was changed. Uh the initial pathway had two bridges because we're
047dealing with surrounding wetlands and uh the pathway was adjusted reducing uh bridge which was a significant savings to the district in addition to uh uh tweaking the design and pivoting it somewhat that also resulted in savings. So multiple layers of folks and expertise involved in making sure that we're presenting the best design at the um most efficient cost that we can provide to the taxpayer. It is important to note sometimes in in thinking about a project in a referendum that's put to voters in December 16th. It's important to note that if this project passes, there is no impact to next year's taxes. This is the timeline with regard to the financing of the project. So 2627 there's no borrowing taking place. 2728. It enters into what's a ban or bond anticipatory note, which is a
048limited time, a one-year financing. And the project primarily, the bond, right, which is the the long-term loan essentially is a 15-year bond. And that begins in 2028-29. And that would that is where the impact or the the tax uh component of this project would begin, which I'll speak to shortly. That's also what you'll see when that state aid begins. So, what's the average cost to the taxpayer? You'll notice there's two components there. Whether uh a homeowner is within the basic STAR for their primary residence or enhanced senior star um in terms of uh estimated impact. So, if you look at a $300,000 full value home, not assessed value, full value home, and um at approximately, if you look at the basic star, it's under $15 a month for this project. All of this information is
049included on the website, so you don't have to write anything down. Every single this slide is currently on the website under fiscal responsibility and long-term value. That brings us to the project timeline, right? The project timeline is also affiliated to that timeline of impact to the taxpayer. So with a referendum vote on December 16th, should that pass, uh we begin the design component. Uh everything that we do similar to the safety capital project that was recently passed has to go to to New York State for approval, which typically is an extensive time frame. So the the target completion date for this project is October 2027. There is a fallback date for June 2028 because there's a lot of constraints here, right? Uh with construction, weather permitting, there's certain things that that can't move forward. Um
050and so we're taking into consideration and land associates has supported certainly being conservative so that we're not presenting a completion date that we that we can't meet. So target completion October 2027 with a fallback of 2028. And just in terms of milestones um in in where we're at in our timeline, you see on is included in the website, we've completed an intercolastic athletic audit back in 2022. Um feasibility study completed that was a two-year study completed in May of 2025. Um and then we land and move into the seeker pro seeker process. Um, board of ed resolution for a referendum vote took place at the October 22nd board meeting. All of the board meetings are viewable should you wish to go back uh and watch what took place. And then uh here we are in
051our public bond presentation. How did we get here? One of the things that's important again and I I already stated the intercolastic athletic audit and that was at no cost to the district. And the reason why that took place is it was very clear to us uh you just have to experience the day-to-day to know that we don't have a football field and we don't have a track. And matter of fact, our track athletes, which you'll see shortly, they practice in the parking lot here on Chester Academy. That's that's where they practice. Um the intercolastic audit was done through the lens of looking at all programs, every sport. What are all the programs? what are all the sports that we offer and what are the facilities that we have to support those sports. That was
052done in 2022. Uh we then through the partnership with the town of Chester were able to uh acquire property at no cost. Um and that has allowed us to move forward or had allowed us to move forward to a two-year feasibility study which is extensive. And it would take the rest of this evening to explain to you everything that went into that study. The entire report is available for you to review on our website under feasibility study. Um everything from what are the species on the site geotechno geotechnical um study um from looking at the uh soil composition basically looking at every aspect of the land to see is this buildable? Is this somewhere that is this something that we can even build on and looking into really in advance of seeker all the envir
053environmental aspects uh that we need to take into consideration and those are links uh directly to those components but again they're right on the website for you seeker is a New York state uh requirement state environmental quality review that's what it stands for and it's New York state mandated you know we had done that feasibility study prior to that mandated requirement, but it is extensive and all of the components of the seeker review are also included on our website. So, if you under seeker, so if you'd like to look at the reports and see why uh it was declared that there was no negative environmental impact that was adopted on October 8th, you're welcome to do so. So, why does it matter? Again, uh we led with certainly what is first and foremost for our
054students and that's safety and security, player safety and field conditions. As public recreation sites, fields are not designed for intercolastic play. It's designed as a recreational facility. Um it presents challenges with surface hardness, uneven conditions, which does increase the risk for player injury injuries, excuse me. Uh mentioned crowd management and safety and security. multiple points of entry versus a single point of entry and the district-owned uh facility advantage, right? Allowing us to to take the lead in terms of uh safety and security, the the lighting that's available, security on site, um really overseeing in the way that we do for all of our buildings at Chester. and certainly aligned with our mission, student centered, future focus, team driven, it's investing in our students and Chester's future. So, it does reflect, as I've touched upon, the
055careful planning that has gone in place in this project, uh environmental studies, cost estimates, feasibility analyses led by our professional engineers and architects that we've partnered with um leading up to the the referendum. Uh, improvements in school, excuse me, improvements in school facilities do benefit the broader community, helping maintain and enhance neighborhood desiraability. It helps protect property values for all homeowners, not just those who have children in our schools. A wellplanned district-owned facility significantly reduces our recurring rental, transportation, and maintenance costs associated with off-site facilities. And again, it's important to note that 65 almost 66% of eligible costs are covered by state building aid, reducing the lo local taxpayer share. Again, 25% of the total project is covered in uh building aid. And then our capital reserve funding that was set aside, $6 million to
056set um offset the cost of this project. And really far more important than anything that I could share with you this evening, far more important than than my voice is the voice of our students and our staff who are here every single day. And that is the why beyond the community of this project and so best to be heard directly from them. So I invite you to uh watch a video which also will be available for review on our site. >> Thank you. our [music] students, our community, our future. That's what the Interscolastic [music] Athletic Facilities Capital Project is about. It's backlan. It's about creating opportunities for all students and a safe, secure, [music] and welcoming space that brings families to Chester and strengthens our community [music] pride. >> Hello, my name is Zia. I'm
057in the 12th grade and I'm a part of the varsity track and field team. and I have been since 8th grade spring season and throughout my time on the track team, we have been practicing on the parking lot and we don't get actual practice time on a track where we can go around and time people. I also think that many of our track track teammates would also benefit from a real facility because the parking lot floor could be really hard on the feet, which is why a lot of people have shin splints and a lot of other other injuries because like it's hard to practice on such a hard surface rather than a soft track that you could feel the bounce with the spikes and other materials that we don't have at our school. Right
058now, we were practicing on a parking lot and, you know, depending like, you know, on based on kids. I've had like 60 kids out on the parking lot doing warm-ups, uh, agility drills, and all kinds of different exercises. And then we move on to speed work. You know, when you're on a track, you have measurements like 100 m, 200 m, 400 m. You also have, you know, little platforms where you have the 4x1 relays. you know, we have to actually go out and put tape down. The parking lot is not an actual 100 meters. So, if I have to measure out 100 meters, I have to measure all the way through the parking lot into the grass. >> If we had a track, we'd be able to do um distance would be doing laps around
059while on other lanes, we have sprinters doing 100 m or 400 meter repeats. But we don't have the space for that. We have to do sprinters can do be doing one thing on another area while the distance are doing something else. and just takes too much time overall and sometimes we get interrupted multiple times actually throughout our practice and I don't think that's beneficial to any of the track team. >> Another large problem with having the track and fields um practice in the parking lot is that the jumpers have nowhere to practice. So usually they sometimes participate in runners workouts, maybe they do a little bit of work on their own, but they never are able to physically jump into a sand pit until a meet, which gives them a very very large disadvantage. and
060is also unsafe because then they don't know the proper form, technique, or have any practice on the way how to do it. >> I feel like we've done really good with what we have because with just having a parking lot, a lot of us have succeeded to do many [music] great things. We had people go off to nationals, people hit state meets as well. So, I think that's great, but if we had a track, I think we'd be able to do even more. >> This [music] next level of competitiveness would come because we have the actual facilities, having the tools that they need. I can't imagine what they would do. They would just excel. >> This project will provide a [music] single secure location for physical education, community events, and outdoor student performances, [music] benefiting
061every student, not just athletes. Uh in the past it's been difficult for us [music] to maintain that safety because of things like multiple points of entry and we really don't know who's coming in out of of of the [music] facility. With this uh new proposition, we have um a real we're setting it up for safety as well as for sports. Having a new facility with stuff like a bathroom to be accessible to people is also just something that a lot of people might not think about, but it really is an issue. You kind of just have to use the bathroom before practice and then if you do, it's this whole big thing. You either have to go all the way up the hill and get someone to unlock the bathroom for you or you have
062to use one of the portaotties which aren't even always there. >> During water breaks, probably like 2 to 3 minutes. um they have to run the whole distance of the soccer field into the building, use the bathroom, and then by the time you get back out, you know, you're already starting your next drill for football. So, you know, you're going to be late for that. >> Teams traveling from far away, we've had we have teams that travel over an hour to come to our facilities and they don't have a place to literally go to the bathroom. They have to use a portaotty or they have to go up to the town park bathroom which has a stall and and you know a stall and a urinal u which again is being used by the anybody
063that's at that park. Uh there's no way for them to use water. There's no way to fill water um water jugs when you run out of water. There's nowhere to store ice for extra ice. Um they just they don't have any of the amenities that you might have at other facilities. We don't really have a feasible usable locker room. Most of the athletes bring their equipment home every day. They bring it on the bus, the school bus in the morning, their helmets and shoulder pads, and they bring it back and forth because they don't feel safe leaving their stuff there. for lacrosse and for soccer since they're both outdoor sports. You kind of just have to put your stuff outside, but then sometimes it starts raining and I usually have my school bag and my
064sports bag, everything. And it would just like pour. All my folders would get wet. Everything and everyone's stuff would get wet, their phones, everything they have to keep. But >> it definitely does impact your mindset when you aren't provided uh common necessities that are given at other facilities. [music] >> [music] >> So the the challenge is right uh all of the studies that are are um comparing synthetic turf [music] to natural grass fields are done at a professional level. So they're measuring the amount of injuries and uh the the the density of the field on a professionally maintained field. There is no public school that can maintain a field at the level of a professional organization. [music] Our students at the end of the day have to leave Chester Academy to go down to Maple
065Avenue. Um some students will take a bus to get down there. Uh some students who drive on their own are going down on their own. We have to practice at Maple Avenue along with the other teams like soccer. So, it might be a little difficult because transportation is can be hard. Um, you know, a lot of people don't drive. So, that might be a big issue for people. >> You know, competitive wise, uh, the other teams beat us to our home fields most of the time. So, it's it's, you know, it's a competitive advantage for the other team to be the first team there and they're already warming up and they're ready and we're we have to get off the bus for a home game and and shift all of our equipment and carry stuff
066and, you know, deciding who's carrying stuff and who doesn't have to carry things. It can be uh challenging. >> Um, right now the Chester Commons is really far out and the road is really hard to walk or bike home after the game. I know for our drum line tonight, we are not able to go play at the home game tonight because we don't have enough students that have rides back after the game and I cannot let them walk home in the dark. >> I know for lacrosse since it's at all the way at the Commons, which is pretty far from where I live. It's kind of all the way to one side of town, there's a there was a bus that would bring the students from the school, but then they would have no ride
067home and then the bus would always be late, so it was very difficult for them to get there. >> [music] >> For soccer, I'm the goalie. So, when I have to dive, I'd much rather dive on turf than on the ground because when I dive on our field, my ar like I get all muddy. I get scrapes on my arms cuz there's little rocks in the dirt. And then also, just for lacrosse and soccer, when the ball is moving, it's predictable on turf. It's like a fair game. You can actually tell where the ball is going to go. Whereas on our field, it can kind of just hit any spot and then bounce some random direction because it'll hit like a little rock or a bump in the mud. We've heard many many comments I've
068heard many comments over the years of other teams uh disparaging our field. Uh questioning why we play there. Um the quality of the field, our field is is very hard. Um especially when it doesn't rain. when I've been tackled on grass, um you know, having all these people on top of me and you know, I fall on divots, fall on rocks, um it's not very it's not a very forgiving landing. You know, you know, late October, early November, it's hard surfaces to play on. But turf, it's really that soft uh material turf all year round. So, it's a lot more forgiving than grass to land on. Right now, we have situations where we can't use a town field, whether it's been rained out or there's another organization using it or the field has been beat
069up by all of the other organizations that use it that we can't play on it. And we've had to transfer really important games like our homecoming game last year to go. It's definitely um a challenge when you have to go to a rival stadium to play your game there. Um and we're hoping to correct that. Now that we have drum line as an organized class, this would just be such a great addition to enhancing their experience and how much they can get done working together in a safe environment. One of the reasons for us musically that this would be so important is because we have students that go on to college with scholarship to perform and they perform at pep band at um Sunni Albany and at other various at Ithaca College at other places.
070So they really get to have this would help set up our musicians um to have that collegiate experience. Drum line, our pep group has not had the chance to have a competitive experience and I know that they have wanted to in the past, but this would just open up the area for them to have more of those opportunities. Perhaps hosting something at home. Um perhaps bringing in other drum line groups that there's not one other school in the county that does that. I know that I've had students in the past visit other schools for all county bands and concerts and they have seen other schools fields and they are so impressed and they comment on it and they say, "Oh, I wish we had that. Now is our chance we could have that." I think
071that all of the students, not just athletes, um I'm talking musicians, other students that are just in different clubs, they would be proud and we would match the other schools around us. [music] Having a facility um upgrade to this extent would um basically mean that we're on an even playing field with all the other programs that we compete against. Um O'Neal, Dover, Spack and Kill, Highland, you can go down the list. All these other schools that are comparable in size to us have a facility like this. And um and for us to to be able to, you know, possibly um upgrade our facility to to such an extent would mean we're on an even playing field with with everybody else. >> Having a track and a facility would boost the morale of the athletes. They
072need to feel that they have a home track and field meet. >> We are currently the only school district in our section who does not have their own facilities. There was two of us. Uh Falls being the other one. Fallsburg has recently moved their football facilities onto school grounds. Uh we are now the only school district that does not play on our own school grounds. We play at a town park that happens to have a field at it. >> Our students would really love to be a part of a home space that's shared um where they really feel pride about their school and their community. And I know if they had an opportunity to have that home space where we can host our own games and really be um inviting to the whole community and
073family and friends to come in. Our our um participation would go up exponentially and our students would really be honored and appreciative to have that space. I think community accessibility for use of the facilities would be really high. I am sure that we have many people in the community including myself. Um, and many people that I know that would love to come and use the facility on the weekend or perhaps after work or perhaps they can even create like a walk-in club and they have the opportunity to collaborate with other people in their age or their like-mindedness to come in and use the facility and that would really just make our school district stand out amongst other districts in the area. our students, our community, our future. It's been years in the making. The seed
074was planted in 2022 after an extensive audit of all of our athletic and [music] practice facilities, followed by a 2-year feasibility study led by LAN associates completed in May 2025. Now we have the opportunity this December to bring that vision to life. [music] A space our entire community can use, celebrate, and call home. >> I want to thank all of the students and staff who participated in this video. And again, uh that's the why. why we're all here. That's that's what a school district is about. A school district is at the heart of a community. Um so just to summarize a facility being open to all, safe lighted track and field available for walking fitness accessible alternative to the to the wooded trails that we have for walking uh in the Chester area. The comfort
075and accessibility with the fieldhouse restroom seating. Weatherprotected shelter area. Safety and security. Well-llet single entry design for peace of mind during our evening events or uh any event whether it be school or community. a gathering place uh for our community, whether it be concert ceremonies, certainly our graduation, uh celebration that truly brings everyone together here at Chester and something that we can be proud of for generations to come and certainly a lasting investment that truly benefits everyone, resident, student, families. In terms of your voice, your vote, our future that speaks to community engagement. Um please visit the website for all information and that includes um everything from the intercolastic audit, the feasibility study, the seeker report, the community uh engagement, communication engagement timeline gallery of the athletics facility shared here this evening, project funding and
076cost uh is on the website and also an extensive FAQ. So 10 uh content areas from project vision to uh environmental considerations to how to get involved. If you click on each of those uh you will then be presented with questions and some of those questions we thank are uh community members who have used the what you see on the slide here the dedicated email address. Uh if you have any questions um certainly this evening as well. Um if they're not already added in our FAQ, we certainly will add them to the FAQ. We really want to ensure that every aspect of this project invol involves your voice and your input. As I started the beginning of this presentation saying it is the result of the input provided from our uh first two parent panel
077meetings. So, uh, information went out in beginning August 20th in my welcome letter to families. Um, just alerting to where we were heading and and, uh, getting to that point of sharing presentations. Um, as I mentioned, we had the the two panel meetings. Here we are November 5th at our board of education meeting. Tomorrow we have the smaller group community advisory panel that is representative uh excuse me that is comprised of residents adjacent the property representatives from the town and village of Chester that's our Kuanas that's our alumni that's the Chester historical society um that is representatives from our safety and security police department and the list goes on it's a small community forum where we can have those conversations before the larger community forums offered to the public on November 12th which is right
078here at the Chester Academy Auditorium at 7 o'clock p.m. I'll also be presenting at the PTA meeting. Um, and we also have another community forum on November 19th at 11:30 at the senior center. Um, leads us into Thanksgiving break. We will have additional opportunities for engagement if uh we find that our community wants to continue the conversation and know that all community members will receive a mailer specific to the project the week of December 1st. So please uh continue to take part. Um please reach out if you have questions and we thank you for your engagement and participation in this project which is such an important opportunity for students, our community and certainly building our future together. Uh with that uh leads us into the next portion of the presentation. So I would like to
079welcome Matt Milamo, vice president of LAN Associates, and Danielle Frell, assistant vice president and project architect with LAN Associates. And also joining the presentation is Bob Kernan, associate principal from the LA group, whose expertise and collaboration uh truly have been essential in shaping the design and vi vision been talking a lot tonight vision of this project. So welcome, >> Kathy. your your presentation was very thorough and uh I'm sure my presentation will pale in comparison. It's very short. It's only three or 400 slides. We'll get through it in an hour or so. Um I'm honored to be here to present the vision of the school district. They really do have a a great concept to bring the community and consolidate the school district's athletic facilities to a campus here uh at this property. Um, we
080were hired and retained uh by the school district several years ago and we began a very intensive design due diligence process. Uh, with me is Danielle Ferrell. She's my assistant vice president. Uh, Bob Kierin from the LA group. Matthew Milmo, managing principal of Land Associates. I'm an architect. I live here in Gan. Uh, I work in Gan. Go Land Associates has been in Gan for 26 years. And we are a full se fullervice architecture and engineering firm. We have 130 employees across five offices and we've been in business for over 60 years. Our experience as you can see in the background here is uh primarily in the design of K12 facilities. Uh this project is very similar and we call this sort of the ingredients of what you're looking to um build here at this
081campus. Uh so you see in the backdrop is a project that Danielle and I were chiefly responsible for um the design of and the implementation of at Gosan High School. Here's some examples of our work. Um, over the past 20 years, I've been working for Land Associates, and I've been honored to be a part of many recreational and athletic facility design projects. Uh, some of which are up here, Gan High School, uh, the campus master plan and upgrades at Monroe Woodbury. Uh, the bond referendum at Mount Pleasant, a $9 million 10acre um, campus uh, athletic facility improvement. God bless you. Uh, another project that I just skipped past u was a collaboration uh with the LA group at NYAK. Uh, we did a a large campus analysis at Monroe Woodbury Central Valley and Monroe Middle
082uh Monroe Woodbury Middle School. Um, we looked at a variety of options to make their um, campus more useful, to optimize the use, to bring synthetic turf fields onto the property so that they could increase their playability, offer more options and programming to their community. Uh, we chose to partner with the LA Group for this project. Um, we're very happy with our partnership with the LA group. We've been doing a lot of work with the LA group. Bob Kernan is a wonderfully thorough uh, designer. He's been on site several times. He's actually met some of your neighbors. We've investigated a lot of this property uh both on the ground, from the air, and from all different angles. Um Bob and his team bring a wealth of experience. Although land does have a civil engineering uh
083backbone and discipline in the office, we felt that based on the size, the magnitude and the um complexity of this project, we wanted to bring an outside partner in who could really offer us the depth and the background uh background and experience necessary to develop a 20 acre site that has uh a lot of vegetation on it, potentially a lot of environmental issues, uh over a 100 foot uh topography change from east to west, and a variety of other concerns as we started the project that we really wanted to make sure that uh we had the right expert companion as part of the project. So we did choose to partner with the LA group and the LA group has a ton of recreational athletic facility experience in the K12 sector. Here's a a broad list.
084Uh and Bob, I don't know if you want to speak about some of your experience here. >> I'll just say personally, uh you need to go through the project, but personally, I've been with the LA group for over 20 years. I'm an associate principal there. Um, and I really just been focusing on K through2 uh, school district projects um, probably for like the last 15 years with a high concentration athletics. So, this is right in our wheelhouse. We very feel very comfortable with the components and the and the project um, that we're trying to pass through here with the vote and I'm very excited to be here and be part of the team. >> Thanks, Bob. So a couple of examples of projects that the uh LA group has has worked on um some of
085which are are local or regionally local NYAK and Pelum for example a larger campus uh athletic complex at Brockport and so we do have a background of experience of working together one at NYAK for example we just passed a 39 million dollar proposition at Hastings on Hudson uh there's roughly an $ 8.2 $2 million athletic facility component. There's a synthetic turf uh field, a synthetic turf softball field, um various other athletic facility upgrades being made on the property you see here, which is called the Burk Estate. Uh we have also partnered with the LA group recently on the uh bond that passed at Liberty Central School District to construct a new athletic facility amongst other upgrades to their middle school and high school. And that project you can see is currently under construction. I think
086that photo is about three weeks old, maybe about a month old. >> Yep. Turf. >> So, um, why did you hire Land? Really, I I think that the best thing I can offer, you know, this community, this room, um, having had such a thorough presentation before us and seeing a lot of our work is to say we're very thorough in our process. Um, we're very methodical. We have the experience to bring to the table to make the right steps in the process. Over the last two years, the school district came to us with a use problem. um they were transporting students off campus uh over to Maple A over to the Commons and there are logistical challenges associated with that. The program defined on the bottom is to have a multi-use synthetic turf athletic fieldhouse
087concession stand uh probably some more storage space, grand stands, bleachers, press box and storage building. The photograph on the right is a survey that we were provided early on for the property. And uh as we've used this as a reference because I think everybody sort of gets envious of their neighbor. I know I'm from Gan. Um I'm not a Chester resident. I did grow up here in the area. I'm an Orange Orange County native. I'm from Warwick originally. Um but the ingredients to this project really are what Gan has, but at a much smaller scale. Um I think we all know that Goan is a larger school district both by size and by population and by enrollment. Um, so, uh, what I want to make sure of to understand is that although Chester has a
088a grand vision, I think in the perception of what Chester is, um, it's not a grand vision that outstrips what their neighbors around the community have. And, uh, although they we want to have the same amenities that go has, it doesn't need to be of the same scale. So, uh, what you have here, synthetic turf, athletic field, athletic field lighting, a grandstand built on top of a fieldhouse. There is a press box. Um the fieldhouse here is about 5,500 square feet. Um probably much larger than what Chester would need. The grand stands has a seating capacity of over,200 people. And so this is more commensurate with the size in the community of Gan. And what we're looking to do is offer Chester the same sporting uh amenities um but reduce the capacity of the spectator
089experience because we don't think that uh your community requires such a large venue. Uh so the project site um you're all familiar with. Uh we are close to as you can see on the bottom the Chester Academy. It's circled in orange. These are some site photographs of both the academy and the elementary school. You can see the subject property in the background. And even better yet, I think these really help um credit to Matt uh for taking some aerial drone photography. Thank you. Um this shows the vegetated site. Um it is a hillside site. on the perimeter of the hillside is it's very wooded, which I think is advantageous for this pro project. It provides a natural buffer between um the school district's property and the neighbors. Uh in the middle of it is a
090sparsely wooded more of a meadow sort of uh uh property or land. um which is actually advantageous once again to clear off because there's not as much land or tree clearing, but there is quite a bit of excavation work that needs to do uh to needs to be done to be regraded uh to flatten out the site. So, um as Kathy has stated before, the due diligence process was very thorough. Um you can see all the tasks that we offered and completed. There was a habitat assessment, geotech investigation, many site evaluations, many site plans, a power analysis. Both the academy and the elementary school have uh spare uh capacity to add power to uh provide to support the project. There's been many estimates all that culminated into a feasibility report and a secret determination. The
091uh site eval evaluation was very thorough. Uh the the site map on the bottom right shows uh the meadow area. It shows the green vegetative buffer which is um on the north east side of the property. Uh on the west side of the property it's bound by the heritage trail. On the south part of the property you have the baseball fields which actually you can see surrounded in blue are wetland areas. So there are a number of natural features on the site as you analyze the site that really um confine the area of development. Uh we did a survey. We've done geotechnical investigations. Geotechnical investigation told us there may be uh the soil may be unsuitable for reuse. We're looking at options to keep all the soil in rather than importing new soil and exporting
092the soil that's on site. finding options to to balance the cut fill of the soil on site and minimize the amount of exportation and importation of fill which will help reduce the cost of the development project. We did assess the habitat. We brought an expert from Edgewood Environmental who took a look at the property, spent some time uh during the uh the peak seasons, if you will, analyzed the um habitat, took a look for potential species that may be endangered or threatened by the development and provided some recommendations for how we might responsibly develop the property. Already spoken about the power analysis. We started with a series of conceptual designs. Um, we did not land on a solution that is being presented as part of the bond referendum in our first pass. Bob's really good
093at what he does, but he likes to go through an iterative process. Um, having taken some feedback from uh both the school board and our stakeholders and the leadership team, we explored a variety of options. One was expanding the parking up at the elementary school and providing a a large parking area that would descend down on the new athletic facility. So, that photo on the bottom left shows probably one of our earlier options. it was woodland concept A. Um what we found was that it would be less desirable to add the parking area and to provide site access through the culdesac and the residential subdivision that's at the top part near the elementary school. And after doing a variety of studies, we did determine that the amount of parking provided on site really is adequate
094uh to meet the needs of the athletic facility and the intended amount of uh guests and visitors that might come to the property. There were a variety of other options that we explored. So, as you go from the top right down to the bottom right, we did look at taking the parking area out, of course, um, sort of rotating the field a little bit. We did look at overlaying, uh, a natural grass and/or turf field down at the baseball field. We looked at a variety of configurations. All of these explorations told us that we couldn't use the lower area by the academy where the baseball field is, and develop that into a running track uh, surrounding a an athletic field. um which brought us back to the option of developing the sloped hillside that the
095district acquired earlier. So again uh more studies um more analyses of the site. It's the same site map that I showed you earlier. In this case we've sort of turned the athletic facility component slightly. Um you can see the wetland areas that sort of confined the project. Um, one of the earlier concepts was to bring people in from the culdesac loop down at the academy and do a walking path almost directly across to the athletic facility. And uh, quite honestly, it would just be technically infeasible to get across the wetlands, develop the area responsibly um, or sort of navigate the topography responsibly. Um, so we chose an alternate solution that brings paths around. This is an earlier version where we found a a more cost-effective path and route to bring people from the academy uh
096over to the athletic facility. I think one of the more important facets that we've always been trying to work around is the natural vegetation, the existing tree buffers uh on the um never going to get this right, the east side of the property. I I can't remember the name of the road, but I'll I'll mention it later. So, these are all the pre-referendum steps. Uh often we engage in a community um you know relationship uh engagement process where there's a a steady public relations effort uh or a campaign. Um the school district has hired or has been working with a PR company. Uh I don't think you've hired them. I think it's Duchess Boseies and they developed that video for you and it's a it's a wonderful video. I think it really expresses the the
097why for the project. Um, often we provide presentations to communities and other school districts to explain the project. Um, Kathy has also been using our graphics and mutually we've been developing graphics in support of this PR campaign. So, here's where we are. Um, this is the athletic facility that Cathy's explained earlier. At the risk of sounding redundant, I'm not going to go through every, you know, bell and whistle. I think that's already been very carefully done and and there's a lot of these maps already on the school district's website. I don't think that as a design professional I could have explained it any better than Kathy. Um she's certainly been listening in our meetings and she's been given a really thorough understanding of the project. So uh fieldhouse and access from the top right which
098is near the elementary school as Kathy explained earlier. That's sort of the emergency uh uh mobility impaired access point. Um all other spectators will likely come from the lower area at the academy property in the parking area down there. This is a uh a synthetic turf field, multi-port uh eight lane track on the perimeter, eight lane sprint lanes. Uh you have the tiered spectator seating at the top left of the facility. Roughly a 500 seat grandstand, a 3,200 square ft fieldhouse with home and away team rooms bisected by public restrooms that were designed for the total capacity of the facility which is both the grandstands in full seated use and the spectator area. The spectator area can seat about 300, maybe 400 at best. Um that would be a little tight. the grandstands were going
099to land anywhere between four and 500 spectators. So the design capacity of the capacity of the entire facility is based upon 800 spectators. Um when the school district came to us, they said the peak capacity or the peak use would likely be a graduation event. So the facility has been designed to accommodate parents coming to watch their students or their children graduate at the facility. And so the peak use is what dictates the bathroom capacity and the bathroom usage and the amount of fixtures in the bathroom which have all been designed for that peak capacity. So you've seen site renderings of this. This is an aerial view of the athletic facility. That's the elementary school in the bottom right. Once again you've you've seen the approach. Uh this is the approach from the elementary school
100side. Uh main ceremonial front gate single point of access as as Kathy has mentioned. um site safety security has been a sort of a prominent uh design goal as part of the project. Uh a concession stand um concession stand is not meant to make food to to create, you know, food um there. It's not going to have a grease trap. It's it's not going to have a grilling station. It's really meant to serve food that's already prepped or to reheat food that you can basically do in a microwave. There will be refrigeration equipment in there and the ability to serve out of a a concession stand window. The building on the right here in this is a storage facility. Uh when you have an athletic facility and a property of this size, this is almost
101a 20 acre property, you need someplace to put your mower, you need some place to put your turf groomer, and quite honestly, you need someplace to store all of the athletic uh facility equipment, your hurdles, your mats, and take them out of the weather. So, on one side, you have maintenance equipment. And on the other side of that of those two doors on the right, you have a storage for maintenance. Another view. This would be your view essentially basically at the top of the press box. Press box is provided with an observation area. The observation area gives uh the home team the advantage or the ability to broadcast games and review game tape film games. This is the view looking up towards um the uh east which is up towards Sunrise Point. So, I want
102to be really careful about some of these renderings and making sure that we convey to the community something that's really important to us, the integrity of the project. Um, the accuracy of renderings, the ability uh of a design professional to convey to the community, what to anticipate this would look like. And so, this is a view from Sunrise Point 10. Sunrise Point. Um, we want to be very careful about how we explain this view. there is a vegetative buffer that exists and Bob was out there earlier today and it looks very thin in the fall and late fall when the leaves are down and what we want to make sure is and I'm sure the school district is very very concerned about this is being a good neighbor and providing and truly providing a vegetative
103buffer between uh the properties at Sunrise Point and the properties below on Hamiltonian. So although this rendering is intended to convey what exists already, um having looked at it again today and saying to ourselves, you know, is there going to be enough? We are going to look at potentially needing to put plantings to buffer that viewpoint. >> I'll just >> Yeah, I'll just add that, you know, the proposed athletic field in this location will be roughly 20 to 30 feet more likely 30 feet lower than the grade it is today. So from this perspective, it will sit down lower. So you won't see direct access to it, but you may see some glow from the lights and the tree coverage will definitely not be as dense as that. I mean, we didn't go and survey
104each tree out there and plant those trees. We just know there's trees and did a mass planting there. So the representation isn't exactly real, right? So there's going to be some more views through there. So it's why Matt mentioned that earlier. >> Yeah. In the background of this particular rendering, you see that 30-foot hillside. you see that existing vegetative buffer. And so this is the reverse view in in theory of looking at it from Sunrise Point in the backyard. Um, also just to take that vantage point and move up, that's essentially where you are on Sunrise Point if you were elevated 200 feet in the air to look back down on the facility to give you a sense of where this viewpoint is. Uh so another rendering u um potentially of a resident who's listening
105or maybe here um from 154 Hamiltonian A which is at the uh the west end of the property um down near the Heritage Trail. Um this is uh an area that we think will require additional uh plantings. There is a tree line there. Um quite honestly the tree line there is very thin currently and we don't think that there's going to be a lot of it that will remain as part of the development. So, our plan is to reestablish a tree line down there. And what you see here is what probably would occur over a 5 to 10 year window once those trees establish and mature. So, the disclaimer and our our disclaimer in general is we're very concerned about not wanting to mislead you. We want you to understand that what you see here
106is probably what happens after 10 years of growth. And there may be visibility of the athletic facility at the immediate onset, but the intention is to grow a tree buffer between the property of the school district and the residents. This is a view of what the athletic facility would look like up the hill as you are uh looking north. Um basically from the heritage trail, you can see, you know, limited viewpoints through the treeine of the athletic facility from the heritage trail. >> Just one other comment too as uh regarding the vegetation. Um, it's my understanding talking with the district that on the hillside that goes from the field down to the Heritage Trail, they're not going to maintain and mow that whole area. They're going to mow a perimeter around the field. So, what
107you see there as lawn in this rendering will grow up to be woodlands eventually, you know, or just uh meadow land. And then over the years, it'll grow in and fill in. So, I just want to make that clear as well. uh some of the imagery that we've been trying to convey to the school district in terms of what we think the pathways will look like. Uh lit paths, um paths that have light posts that potentially have banners on it, uh emergency call stations for uh improved safety and security, um perhaps respit areas. It's about a,200 foot walk from the uh academy parking lot to the athletic facility, which is just under a/4 mile. Uh there is a bridge or a wetland crossing. So we're going to have to construct a very nice looking uh
108wooded bridge. Um and uh you know we couldn't leave here today without talking about the benefits of synthetic turf. Um often we we hear communities and other school districts come to us with a use issue and I don't think that this school district is any different. Although the use issue is actually occurring at the Chester Commons where um I can remember in my childhood long long ago um when that property was opened probably 30 years ago that was the premier place to play a a an event on. So, I remember my playoff game against Pine Bush in 1993 or four being played on that field when it had just opened and it was the best grass in Orange County after 30 years of use and with the high demand of that property and the addition
109of lights and everything else that goes on there. Um, you just can't, as Matt said earlier, you just can't maintain it to the level you need and you can't rest it to allow the the grass to regrow and replenish properly properly. So, synthetic turf offers all of these benefits. unlimited use, multiport versatility, freedom from weather and seasonal restrictions, reduce water consumption and annual maintenance. It's durable, it's resilient, and has a consistent playing surface. Uh we've provided this cost projection in tandem with Triton Construction Land uh recommended hiring an independent third-party cost estimator with a property of this size in raw land development. Although we're experts in the design of athletic facilities in the K12 market, this is a rather unique project. We don't go to a lot of school districts and and and we're not
110asked a lot to develop a raw piece of land, particularly a land uh a piece of land that has a 100 foot grade difference, has trees, and has other environmental concerns. Um so we did partner with Triton Construction. We retained them to provide a professional cost estimate. And the process of working with Triton was very helpful for the design team. They actually made a suggestion to uh move the athletic facility about 30 feet in one direction and eventually we pivoted uh the entire facility about 15 to 30 degrees on access which allowed us to balance the cut and fill on site rather than doing any import or export and ultimately reduced our cost projection from what started at 28 and a half or nearly 29 million down to where it is today. Um Kathy presented
111the same slide. I'm not going to go over it again. I think there's an important footnote here. There is a tree felling window uh by the New York State uh DEEC. That tree felling window is uh is put in place to avoid um upsetting a bat habitat when they migrate during the months outside of 111 to 331. So there is in New York State this window of opportunity where you can remove trees. And should this project get approved, there would be an immediate need to remove some trees so that it wouldn't interrupt the progress of of future development of the athletic facility. Otherwise, um, as I've said to Kathy, I want to be very reasonable and realistic about the timeline. Ideally, we would finish by October 2027. There are just some things that we cannot
112control. Um, the weather is is one with this past summer was incredibly dry. The summer before that, I think we had five or six over 100year storms that all happened in about a 45day window. So depending on whether it's a super dry, which would be advantageous for our project, or a super wet summer, that could stretch out the entire duration of the project into the following year. There are are also some soil conditions um that are highly sensitive to absorption and and water. Um so if you get a wet season, it will uh it will make the project a little bit more technically challenging. So, that's really it. Um, when we were asked to come present today, uh, there was this potential for an interactive format and and we're happy to field those questions through
113the school district through their channels and go ahead and put that information back out on the school district's website through an FAQ. Um, I don't have the other 200 slides with me. Kathy already covered them. And we're honored to be a part of of your design team and present this project to the community. Thank you. On behalf of the board, we want to sincerely thank you um for our partnership, the amount of hours um that we have invested um with the LA group and the land group. I think we're up to daily hour-long phone calls. Um it is sincerely more okay. Um we sincerely sincerely appreciate the thoroughess as we embark on this process. That brings us to public um comment. Um due to the uniqueness of this meeting, I just wanted to um reiterate
114that um the board and administration is here to listen um to your questions, your concerns. Um all questions and comments um are being noted and if they are not already reflected in our FAQ, they will be um unlike some of the advisory panels that um Superintendent O'Hara spoke of. This is kind of not an interactive. This is for us to hear um what the community is feeling and some of the concerns or questions you have. So, I open the floor to anyone who would like to come up and share um maybe some questions or concerns. Great. Thank you. Um that moves us to round table discussion. Miss O'Hara, I'm sure you have something to share. I'll add I I just again want to thank all of our students and staff who who participated and um
115and uh really gave a unique perspective that I could never capture we could never capture on the importance of this project and even down to you know thinking Brooke you sharing about you know having a backpack and bringing all your things from from school to to play your sport at the end of the day and having to worry about weather considerations and um down to uh the implications of running on a parking lot and the the medical aspects of uh playing on uh turf versus uh the fields that were we're able to use. It's just, you know, there's there's no possibility for even district um personnel administration to understand the perspective from our students, staff um that that use our facilities and um are living the day-to-day uh without them. So again, um thank you
116so much to LAN Associates and the LA group. Um the expertise has been instrumental in in leading up to this project. Um, just to pivot for a bit, I do want to and before I pivot again for a last uh repeat to please visit the website for all of the information. Um, if you're watching this evening and you have a question or a comment, uh, send it go on the website and you'll see that dedicated email address and and send your question in there. We check them every single day and if your question is not added on our FAQ, we will absolutely add it so that your voice is heard and um we're addressing any concerns that you might have. Um very important to us throughout this uh process that um we partner with each
117and every community member um as we progress leading up to the referendum. So now I will pivot just to make mention uh we had our superintendent's conference day yesterday um which uh progressed with our synergy training which is a significant transition this year for a student information system which I've mentioned before. Uh some of our teachers participated in their professional learning communities PLC's which are specific to objectives. We had our elementary school trained on amplify science um which is reflective of a program that uh is aligned to New York NextGen standards and truly just comm uh continuing our commitment. We talked a lot about district goals at the beginning of this project and then Mary uh Kate Bosch and John Flanigan mentioned district goals as well. So everything we do is aligned to our mission,
118vision and district goals and this our superintendent's conference day and professional development is respective of teacher input. um before they are planned through our district advisory panel um and also reflective of data-driven instruction and collaboration. And I just again want to make mention tomorrow we welcome our smaller community panel. So we've had our parent representatives and now we pivot to our smaller community panel and uh again uh representatives of the town village Guanis Historical Society. I won't again list SEPsA uh representative here this evening um Chester PTA PTSA um very much appreciative and um please also take note again November 12th 7 p.m. here at Chester Academy, please come uh community forum. It's a it's not a board of education meeting, right? So, it's it's more it's less formal uh able to have a discussion
119and and we look forward to welcoming you and listening to your input and feedback. And then again on November 19th at 11:30 at the senior center. Um please come. Uh you're welcome and and uh we look forward to to hearing from you. Thank you. >> Anything else surrounding this side. Does anyone have anything to share for round table? >> I don't have any updates. I I wanted to mirror the feedback that you offered and to thank the land group um and to Mrs. O'Hara and the team for the amount of work that has gone into the presentation. I think it just speaks for itself. But also to acknowledge, you know, gratitude for the former board that preceded us who tried to push something similar forward years ago. And when that initial project didn't pass, it
120presented, you know, opportunities to review all the reasons why. And as a newly uh as a new board coming in, having that feedback and then being able to pivot and to see this team be able to take that vision, I think, and with what was created, I think just completely exceeded um anything that we could have visualized when the idea of bringing this up again um came up. So, thank you so much. It's just exciting to see the renderings. It's exciting to see everything coming out and I think as a board, you know, we can't of course tell people how to vote, but we have to encourage people to vote and hoping that more parents will come out for some of the community forums that uh will be coming up in the future. So, we
121look forward to having more community involvement and really seeing the momentum for this project build over a short period of time. Brook, do you have anything to share with us? >> Yes. So, uh, first I just want to start off by thanking you all for advocating for the students at Chester and I'm very, very excited at the possibility of having a new sports facility. I think it'd be very beneficial. And just for what's going on in school, Key Club is having a meeting tomorrow and they concluded the Thanksgiving row sales today. The profit will be counted by next week to determine how much is raised towards future Key Club projects and the LTC conference. Kiko members will also be attending the Veterans Day ceremony on the 11th to hand out cookies that will be baked
122by the advanced food advanced foods class to the veterans to thank them for their service. Any veterans that are not present will have their cookies delivered to them by key club members. Yearbook design pages are nearly done for the fall. All pages are due this Friday the 7th. And so far we have covered the homecoming dance and football game, spirit weeks, and then candid of just people in school, fall sports pages, and the clubs. Uh senior superlatives were voted on by the senior class, and photos for these will be taken tomorrow. Each senior was just allowed to win one superlative each. The band will be performing the national anthem and armed forces piece during the Veterans Day assembly on Monday in school. The powderpuff football game was a a success last Tuesday with the senior
123victory. Um, National Honor Honor Society is beginning to plan the annual blood drive. It will be held on Friday, November 21st, and juniors and seniors who are over 16 years old will be eligible to donate. Multicultural Club is organizing the middle school rec night this Friday with the help of high school volunteers. And then lastly, the pro the next project adventure trip was approved and will be at Urban Air and this will be scheduled for a date in December. And that's all. >> Thank you. Anything else to share for round table? Okay. That moves us to our um consent agenda. >> I would like to make a motion to adopt consent agenda items 5.1 through 5.7. I'll second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Consent agenda items pass. That brings us to our second
124public comment. If anyone wish to come down and share any thoughts. Okay. Can I please have a motion to adjurnn? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> For all of those who attended this evening, we thank sincerely thank you for those of you who attended um virtually. We thank you and please be on the lookout for those community forums as well as our next board of education meeting on November 19th. Thank you and good night.