AMHERST — An Amherst-Pelham Regional School Committee member who has advised against putting more town money toward building an artificial turf field inside an eight-lane track at the high school, despite her panel endorsing the project, is being called out by a colleague for violating committee policy.
When the regional committee meets Tuesday, member Peter Demling will ask the panel to adopt a motion that would remind members of their responsibilities after fellow Amherst representative Jennifer Shiao has undertaken efforts to stop the project, including publicly posting her opposition to the plans on a personal blog associated with her elected position and speaking to the Town Council at its Nov. 21 meeting.
The committee, according to a post by Demling on his official page, has a policy advising members “to accept the will of the majority vote in all cases, and to remember that they are one of a team and must abide by, and carry out, all committee decisions once they are made.”
In a 6-6 vote, the Town Council at its Nov. 21 meeting rejected spending $900,000 in free cash that would go toward the $4.7 million project.
On the agenda for the regional meeting is a motion that reminds all committee members, which includes five from Amherst, including Demling and Shiao, two from Pelham and one each from Shutesbury and Leverett, to “refrain from knowingly violating School Committee policies concerning member duties and responsibilities, including the expectation that members abide by and carry out all committee decisions once they are made.”
The motion goes on to clarify that members speak only on behalf of themselves when expressing disagreement with a committee action, to seek clarification from the chairperson if a policy interpretation is needed and to request expressed formal permission of the committee for an exception if unable to comply with policy.
Demling explained his reasoning for seeking the motion, which he said is not a censure.
“We currently have a School Committee member choosing to actively undermine the SC’s vote in favor of the ARHS track/field project by publicly advocating against it,” Demling wrote. “This raises the question: is this acceptable behavior; and what, if anything, should be done about it?”
Shiao has used a blog to explain her rationale for going against the vote of the committee. In March, Shiao was in the 8-1 majority in supporting the plans, with the lone vote against the project by Leverett representative Gene Stamell, who cited the costs in his reasoning for opposition. Since then, the Town Council has received concerns about PFAS chemical contaminants contained in artificial turf, and its prohibition in other communities, including Boston, as reasons to scuttle the plans.
“But now that I know more, I can’t in good conscience support a decision that was made without the benefit of a robust discussion on some very important issues regarding artificial turf,” Shiao wrote. “Ultimately, a School Committee member’s job is to do what is in the best interests of students and the school community; the responsibility to support committee decisions should not take precedence over this.”
To the Town Council, Shiao said that Nantucket halted plans until a public discussion involving experts was held. “I would have loved for the Regional School Committee to have done something similar so that we could have made a fully informed decision,” Shiao said.
During the discussion at the Town Council meeting, student athletes, coaches and parent members of the Hurricane Boosters, which is doing fundraising to meet community support for the project, spoke of the need for the turf field, and that the worry over PFAS shouldn’t derail the project.
“We understand the synthetic turf industry is making strides because people are pushing back, so we do need people to be raising these issues,” Booster and parent Mary Klaes said.
Klaes also noted that sports and the theater arts is a fundamental part of education, with students often doing their school work and abiding by school rules because of their participation in athletics and other extracurriculars.
“It’s extremely important for some of our children,” Klaes said. “This is the only thing getting them through the school.”
The regional committee is expected to have other discussions on the track and field project, using as the basis a letter to Town Council from Superintendent Michael Morris and Athletic Director Victoria Dawson asking for the town to show financial commitment to repairing and replacing the grass athletic fields, including having the town’s Department of Public Works do more maintenance work and possible rental of fields off site when the fields are under repair.
“We know these proposed commitments will have significant, ongoing financial implications for the town that will become clearer only as work on the fields progresses,” Morris and Dawson wrote.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
