Latest Round of Community Discussion Over Marsden Street Purchase Takes Place at Wednesday Night Forum

Sag Harbor residents gathered in the auditorium at the Pierson Middle High School on Wednesday night, April 26, for another community forum on the Sag Harbor School District’s potential purchase of four properties on Marsden Street.

Superintendent of Schools Jeff Nichols, School Business Administrator Jennifer Buscemi, and the Board of Education were all on hand to provide up-to-date information about the district’s desire to purchase a total of 4.13 acres on nearby Marsden Street, adjacent to the Pierson Middle High School. A vote on whether to acquire the property will be included as a proposition on this year’s budget vote, set for May 16.

If approved, the district will go out for a $6 million bond, and will spend an additional $3.425 million from its facilities improvement capital reserve fund to cover the $9.425 cost of buying the land.

Many of the same talking points that have been hashed out and reiterated by both opponents and supporters of the purchase were part of the discussion on Wednesday night. It has been a divisive issue in the community for months, with one group of residents — many of them parents of children in the district — arguing passionately in support of the purchase, while another group of residents — many of them living on or near Marsden Street — expressing their opposition to the plan.

While each side has its own long list of reasons why they think the purchase would be either good or bad for the district and residents, one issue that has come up and has been a talking point for the opposition is the prospect of putting a parking lot on the single 0.76-acre lot on the south side of the street.

The district has been adamant that the May 16 vote is simply a yes or no on whether to acquire the land, and that once the purchase is approved, it will go through the process of determining what to do with the property, and that all options are on the table. But many residents believe the district remains dedicated to the idea it had originally presented for the property — building an athletic field on the four adjoining lots and a parking area on the single lot — because Nichols and members of the School Board had said repeatedly, publicly, for months that an athletic field had been identified as a high priority facilities need.

Residents who oppose the purchase have used the specter of a 70-plus space parking lot as a reason to vote no on May 16, but at the forum, Nichols clarified that the inclusion of a parking lot with that many spaces was only ever part of the plan when the district was originally in talks with the Town of Southampton to jointly purchase the land with a $6 million contribution from the Community Preservation Fund, with the idea it would develop the land into a recreational playing field that could be used by both the district and town residents. That partnership had come with a list of terms and conditions the district would have been required to comply with, but the deal fell apart in March, leaving the district free to pursue the purchase on its own without any restrictions from the town.

Nichols made it clear that not only is it not a given that a parking lot will be built there, he added that even if any future development plan included a parking lot, it is highly unlikely that it would hold 70-plus cars.

“The request for a parking plan came from the Town of Southampton,” Nichols said at the forum, adding that if any future plan does include a lot, he would recommend it be smaller and include extensive buffers to mitigate the impact on neighbors.

While much of the discourse surrounding the Marsden Street purchase has centered on the relative merits and drawbacks of acquiring and eventually developing the land, and what the best use of the property would be, some attendees at the forum had questions about what the future will bring if the vote to acquire the land passes.

Kiersten Simmons, a member of the PTSA who has children in the district and also works in the district, asked about what those next steps would look like once the district owns the land, and how it would go about seeking input on developing a plan for the property.

More community outreach, in the form of surveys, ads taken out in the Sag Harbor Express to help disseminate information to residents, and even a newsletter are all on the table, Nichols said.

“The goal would be to articulate to the community what the primary facility issues are and ask the community what it is they value, and the information we receive would guide us in terms of next steps,” Nichols said.

One step it seems clear many residents are eager to take once the vote passes is that of healing. The issue has created deep division in the community, which is easily evident to anyone who takes a drive around the village and neighborhoods in the district. Dueling lawn signs and posters expressing support or opposition to the acquisition are everywhere, and several of the pro-Marsden signs were defaced in recent weeks.

The Wednesday night forum was civil, for the most part, with the exception of a few minutes in the middle of the gathering, when School Board member Alex Kriegsman raised some hackles in the audience by stating, “I understand if you live across the street and you don’t want this across the street, but the school has been here since 1908, and if you didn’t like our kids, this wouldn’t be the right neighborhood for you.”

Several audience members took issue with that comment and were visibly upset and frustrated, taking Kriegsman to task for his comments. Later on, when she had a chance to speak, former board member Chris Tice, who has been a vocal supporter of the acquisition, said she did not believe that anyone on either side of the issue dislikes kids, and there were pleas and reminders that disagreeing respectfully was something all residents should strive to do.

Kathryn Levy, a resident who has been vocal in her opposition to the purchase, spoke at the forum and asked Nichols what he considered the top five facilities needs of the school to be. She also voiced a frustration that has been brought up repeatedly by those in opposition to the purchase — that the district is putting the acquisition up for a vote without having a development plan for the land.

“The process you’re describing with the educational facilities planning committee, in a responsible planning process should happen before the vote and not after,” she said.

Nichols said he “respectfully disagrees” that the district should have a development plan before holding the acquisition vote, and outlined why.

“The opportunity to acquire land adjacent to the district simply doesn’t come around that often,” he said. “We have a limited footprint and an opportunity to acquire land adjacent to the school that will increase our flexibility when it comes to facilities now and in the future.”

He cited upgrading the middle school/high school gymnasium, expanding the science program, creating more athletic fields, and more parking as top facility needs. Levy had begun her line of questioning by following up on a point brought up by longtime resident Nada Barry, who questioned why the district has still not created a hot lunch program for elementary school students, sharing that she believed that was a top need in the district.

After reminding Nichols and the board that the district had promised that creating a kitchen to facilitate a hot lunch program was one of the plans when it was acquiring what is now the Sag Harbor Learning Center, Barry spoke about her thoughts related to the Marsden purchase and possible plans for development.

“I realize we are dealing with a large sum of money and I see a little of the cart before the horse,” she said. “I understand the various reasons for the May 16 vote because that’s the budget vote. A parking field for 75 people in the historic district is, for me, a no no.”

Another repeated talking point for those opposed to the purchase has surrounded the environmental studies done on the land, which many opposed to the acquisition say are flawed or inadequate.

Steve Williams, another longtime resident who has worked for many years in the real estate industry and is the president of the homeowners association of the Azurest neighborhood in Sag Harbor, spoke on that topic.

“Have you done the due diligence, or should you delay making this purchase until you invest $40,000 or $50,000 to do a phase 1 and phase 2 study, and other things that anyone would do that’s rudimentary for a situation where they could get back their deposit if the land didn’t meet their qualifications?”

In response to his query, Nichols pointed out that the district architect, H2M, has already conducted those phase 1 and phase 2 studies, which are presented on the district website. Board Vice President Brian DeSesa expanded on the district’s position related to the environmental studies that have been done, and the way in which they were done — specifically, segmenting environmental review into studies done for the acquisition, followed by the vote for acquisition, with a promise that more environmental review, which will be legally required, will be done once a development plan is created and presented to the community (which will require another community vote).

“Everybody’s comments throughout this process are based, in my opinion, as if development was going to take place in a vacuum, if you had a property that was going to be available forever and if you had unlimited time to make decisions,” DeSesa said. “There was a phase 1 and phase 2 done, and there were no environmental or cleanup issues. We have a ready, able and willing seller, and the seller won’t be there forever. My opinion is that all the boxes have been checked in terms of development for the property in terms of what we’re considering now.”

Exactly what the district is considering for the property if it should acquire it is a subject of speculation and doubt for many residents. Douglas Newby spoke at the forum, saying he doubted the district’s claims of being open to several ideas for the land should it acquire it.

“It’s been hard to understand exactly what the plans are,” he said. “Since March, you’ve been saying there are no plans, but before that there were very specific plans.”

He said the $16.2 million figure that many opponents of the acquisition have touted in social media posts and materials arguing against voting for the purchase came from a plan that the district presented before the Southampton Town Board at a February 28 public hearing, before the deal with the CPF fell apart.

“How can you spend so much time arguing for the plan that you spent a lot of time and taxpayer money developing, and how can we now believe there is no plan and we’re back to a completely open-ended review of opportunities?” he added.

Nichols responded by saying the district put those specific plans together for an athletic field based on conditions that were dictated to it by the town, in order to make the deal for the $6 million of Community Preservation Fund money a reality.

“When that [deal] didn’t come to fruition, we were no longer bound by those discussions and the framework we were operating in,” Nichols said. “Now that we’re not partnering with the town, we’re free to discuss alternate uses of the Marsden properties, which is what we intend to do.”

Board President Sandi Kruel pointed out after that the $16 million is still false and misleading, because it gives voters the impression that a “yes” vote on May 16 would be for the expenditure of that sum of money.

“That’s inaccurate,” she said. “We’re voting on a $6 million bond.”

Former board member Tice, who has been a vocal proponent of the acquisition, took issue with the use of that $16 million figure as well, going as far as to ask opponents to stop using it.

“I’m asking those in the community who continue to post and have signs promoting an inaccurate amount of money being asked, and the 72 car parking lot, to please take those down and remove those signs,” she said. “There is proof that is false, and I know good people are behind that effort and I can’t believe they’d want to lie to the community.

“Whether you’re for or against the project,” she added. “I hope everyone turns out to vote.”

Other notable topics that were brought up and discussed related to Mashashimuet Park, which has been the home of Pierson athletics for decades. Before the district announced last September that it was pursuing the Marsden lots, it had been in negotiations with the Mashashimuet Park Board to put up a vote on a $13.5 million facilities capital improvement project there.

That vote was put on hold as the district began what became a long and arduous process of trying to acquire the Marsden Street lots, with the idea that if the district does acquire the Marsden lots, it could potentially turn those lots into an athletic fields and then potentially scale down what it had planned to do at Mashashimuet Park.

Nichols announced at the meeting that the board is likely to approve, at its next meeting on May 8, a one-year contract extension with the park, and he also added that the Town of Southampton has been in discussions with the park board to see if it can work out a deal to purchase development rights at the park, which would provide an avenue for upgrades to be done there that would benefit the entire community, as Mashashimuet Park is a public park, and would also save the district from having to spend millions of dollars to do necessary improvements and renovations there. Whether that deal will come to fruition remains to be seen.