Newton South fields not on track for September

By Ben Terris
Town Correspondent

According to Mayor's office, the synthetic fields that are being built at Newton South High School, may not be ready by the start of the school year.

Jeremy Solomon of the Mayor's office said that an appeal by Guive Mirfendereski could delay the project up to six months.

In April the Department of Environmental Protection visited the site upon Mirfendereski’s request to determine if construction of the synthetic field violated the Wetlands Protection Act. After the DEP supported plans for construction, Mirfendereski filed an appeal to the decision. According to Solomon, a hearing for this appeal should happen sometime in the next three to six months.

While construction has begun on portions of the field, before the hearing, no work can take place on a 40-foot strip of land that approaches the nearby wetlands. This section of land is critical to the project because it includes the track and a patch of what will be the field.

“This is a real shame for the Newton South community,” said developer Ted Tye, who founded the group NEWTURF in 2004 in response to what he considered “deplorable” and “unsafe” field conditions at Newton South High School. “We have a real opportunity to do good, and we keep getting blocked by appeals that are just delaying us. I don’t just blame Guive [Mirfendereski], I blame everyone who is supporting this guy and involved in blocking us from working.“