By Ward Peck
Editor
    When the Cape Elizabeth Town Council asked for the opinion of school board members about a proposal to borrow $150,000 toward the cost of bleachers for the new high school turf field, they got an earful.
    To a person, the seven-member school board expressed dissatisfaction about being asked whether they supported a project they knew little about even though it was being proposed on land under their jurisdiction. Several board members described an incongruity of being asked to support $150,000 for a concept, while facing very real cuts to their proposed budget.
    Based upon the School Board’s reaction, the council decided to drop the item from the bond proposal, which will get a public hearing along with the school and town budget on Monday, May 7.
    School Board Finance Committee chair, Rebecca Millett told the council the extent of her knowledge about the bleacher proposal consisted of a single line on a proposed town bond referendum. But she said she was willing to support the item if the council agreed to fully fund the $18.9 million school budget the board proposed.
    The offer drew generous laughter that indicated the prospect of the budget escaping without cuts. The Town Council Finance Committee later recommended cutting the school budget increase from the proposed 3.9 percent to 3 percent.
    “I’m not opposed in concept to bleachers,” said School Board member Patricia Bingham. “My basic concern is we are trying to get the most efficient budget and discussing $150,000 for bleachers.”
    Board Member Kevin Sweeney echoed that sentiment.
    “We are breaking our backs trying to be fiscally responsible and this is something Cape Elizabeth doesn’t need.”
    Other school board members saw in the bleacher proposal the continuation of a pattern of misinformation and lack of communication surrounding the yearlong effort to fund, construct and operate the artificial turf field now under construction behind the high school.
    Several members expressed confusion about whether a contract had been signed. It had, apparently approved by the board, which according to Millett was given to the board to review on the same day they were being asked to approve it. Others took issue with a decision to install permanent markings on the field for boy’s sports, but not for girls’.
    For their part, town councilors expressed surprise that school board members were in the dark about much of the project. Several councilors said they assumed the school board was better informed about the process.
    “It’s a surprise to us that it was a surprise to you,” Councilor Mary Ann Lynch said.
    “I’m very surprised you didn’t know anything about this,” Council Chair Paul McKenney said.
    School board members reached in the week after the meeting expressed their support for the turf field, but said their concerns related to the process in which it had come to fruition that they said was rife with miscommunication.
    “What troubles me is a lack of formalized communication,” Brigham said. She place the blame for the lack of communication on the fact that there were several groups working hard but with different responsibilities in the effort and that dynamic allowed information to fall through the cracks.
    That effort was initiated by a private non-profit group called “Kids’ Turf,” and began in earnest in the spring of 2006 with a proposal to construct a state of the art artificial turf field in place of a rehabilitated natural field that was delayed indefinitely when the sod failed to grow properly. The prior rehabilitation effort included the installation of lights to allow games to be played at night.
    Following a presentation in April 2006, the School Board voted in support of the private fundraising effort. From the beginning, the turf field effort envisioned the project would include the field, bleachers, snack shack and a coaches’ box, with the project split into two phases, the first phase being the installation of the field. Bleachers and other facilities as well as establishing an endowment fund for the eventual replacement of the playing surface financed by a separate fundraising effort.
    Initially, the Kids’ Turf organization envisioned a highly aggressive fundraising schedule. In the early months of the fundraising effort, there was an expectation that funds for phase one could be secured in time to have the field installed by the fall of 2006, which meant raising more than $600,000, securing a contract and constructing the field in a matter of months.
    By June 2006, Kids’ Turf made a similar presentation to the Town Council to elicit that body’s support. In the intervening month between the two presentations problems and conflicts with lines of authority were already being raised.
    In May 2006, Town Manager Michael McGovern sent an email addressed to Michael Ott, the Cape Elizabeth resident spearheading the Kids’ Turf fundraising effort. In that email, McGovern wrote, “...I have been quite uncomfortable with the process on this proposal.”
    McGovern described his uneasiness with, “a private group...being put in the position of answering questions that are not theirs to answer.”
    Those questions related to how the field would be used, how often it would be used, by whom it would be used, how much it would cost to operate and how would the operations be financed and who would have the ability to negotiate naming rights.
    “Kids Turf should focus on their fundraising and staff and policy makers need to focus on the many other questions that are being raised,” McGovern wrote.
    To address these concerns, the town council formed an ad hoc committee to steer the policy issues outlined by McGovern. The committee included as voting members two town councilors and two school board members to set policy and harmonize the fundraising efforts with the needs of the school and town.
    With the formation of the ad hoc committee and the support of the council and school board, there were four distinct groups working on the turf field project, each with a different charge and different interests to protect.
    By September 2006, it became clear the Kid’s Turf had not raised enough money to install the field that year and according to Ott at the time, the effort was in danger of collapsing altogether. In that month, the council, based upon a recommendation by McGovern used $50,000 in surplus funds to subsidize the replacement endowment, reducing the need for Kids’ Turf to raise the funds.
    Around the same time Kids’ Turf was in negotiations with the Hannaford Company to name the field after the company in exchange for a $100,000 donation.
    While the town council did not adopt the agreement for several months, several emails released by McGovern indicate the offer was being considered as early as September and may have conflicted with assurances fundraisers made to others who donated.
    On Sept. 14, Ott received an email from Jessie Timberlake, who mentioned a donation made in the name of her brother Ray Moulton.
    “How are we coming on naming the field...”Are we on Hannaford or is there still a chance that it might be the ‘Rey Moulton Field?’” Timberlake asked.
    In response, Ott told Timberlake, “If the field becomes a turf field then I believe that it will be named after the company you mention below. They have given a large sum of money to the field, they have arranged for a new scoreboard, and six executives have personally given in. In addition, the school campus was the family farm in the 1800s.”
    On Nov. 29, Timberlake, along with several other family members sent a more detailed email, claiming that Rey Moulton had contributed $50,000 to the earlier effort to install lighting at the field in exchange for the field being named after him shortly before he died.
    In December, Timberlake sent a third email summarizing a conversation with Ott in which he offered several other naming possibilities that might carry Moulton’s name, including a bronze plaque or granite bench. That same day, Ott sent an email to McGovern and School Supt. Alan Hawkins for council approval for “future naming rights at the site.”
    However in an email dated Feb. 28, 2007 related to a separate issue, Councilor Anne Swift-Kayatta mentions the agreement with Hannaford, states Hannaford “would be the exclusive name of the Facility and no other party shall have the right to have their name associated with any part of the Facility.”