Councilman Jim Madden “FieldTurf has Always Stood Behind its Product”

Email communication from the desk of Councilman Jim Madden

Subject: FieldTurf article From: "Madden, James - Councilman" jmadden@newprov.org To: mstanmyre@njadvancemedia.com,cbaxter@njadvancemedia.com CC:

Gentlemen, I wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment and claims put forth within your story which appeared in today's Star Ledger.

Please let me point to errors and provide some additional clarity and points of view to provide balance which was remarkably absent from your report.

There is only one turf field in New Providence, and that is Lieder Field which opened in 2007. Your article lists West Field in New Providence as being FieldTurf and that is completely untrue. West Field has always been and continues to be natural grass surface so whomever provided your list of FieldTurf projects, the validity of the source is perhaps suspect or questionable.

Your article mentions a Google Earth image that shows noticeable Turf wear in 2012. Had you focused on the image you would have seen the adjacent West Field being grass. Our Borough's experience with FieldTurf has been a huge success story.

Since opening in 2007, the previous field usage which was limited to 116 annual hours of usage as a grass field has increased to 1900 hours of use each year as it just turned 10 yrs old this past September.

Lieder Field was not funded using taxpayer dollars. With the exception of a small Union County Kids Recreation Trust Fund Grant, the vast majority of funding were private donations to the New Providence Athletic Foundation which gifted the field to the Board of Education.

I was a Board member of the NPAF and worked intimately with FieldTurf and the contractors who installed the Lieder surface. The vast majority of FieldTurf installations are independently contracted. Your article did not point that out.

As Superintendent Miceli pointed out, the life expectancy is seen as 10-12 years. The FieldTurf proposal estimated life expectancy of 8 yrs. However your article does not provide or mention the extent to which the recommended maintenance is followed. Clearly by following the maintenance schedule the life expectancy can go beyond life expectancy. Dr. Miceli and School Administrator Jim Testa feel so strongly about the condition of Lieder Field that it's replacement cost was removed from within the recent Bond Referendum which was passed this past September.

Lieder Field has been an overwhelming success. It has allowed us to rest and repair our other grass fields within our field inventory. It has saved the school district tens of thousands each year, and has reduced chemical runoff considerably. It has recovered hundreds of hours of playable time in each year that would have been canceled otherwise.

As a current member of our Borough Council and committee chair of Recreation Capital Improvement, we have completed a renovation at Hillview Field in 2013 where FieldTurf products were implemented. The Hillview project won an engineering award by the Society of Municipal Engineers.

The Borough awarded a recent contract to renovate Oakwood Park where FieldTurf products will be installed next week.

I have personally worked with FieldTurf and Perry Dipiazza for over 10 years. I have found them to be an honest and thorough professional organization and among the most valued of resources the Borough has had the pleasure to work with. It was hugely inappropriate for your paper to cite Mr. Dipiazza's personal business and that to me had no bearing on the case you were trying to prove and was quite shameful on your part.

The Star Ledger is free to express it's opinion and certainly the overwhelming focus was an attack on FieldTurf. I'm aware that FieldTurf answered all 70 questions that were asked of them, yet I did not read as much to that reference or the fact that FieldTurf has manufactured it's own filament since 2011.

FieldTurf has always stood behind its product and specifically it's product's warranty. Certainly any community or school district can put forth a warranty claim. I'm confident that they will do whatever they need to do to right any customer complaints...they always have.

Feel free to seek and spend time speaking with satisfied customers such as our Borough. One sided unbalanced reporting serves no benefit to the public.

Sincerely,

Jim Madden Borough Councilman 908-499-7916