To the editor:

This year’s ballot gives Barrington residents the opportunity to weigh in on artificial turf, also known as plastic paving.

Field usage, maintenance and space has been a chronic issue for the past 25 years, in a town privileged enough to obsess about children’s sports. This issue, like other chronic town issues such as senior and affordable housing, enhancing economic development, addressing climate resiliency, increasing municipal and school budgets, will not abate with the addition of an artificial turf field.

Artificial turf is astonishingly expensive; requires specialized maintenance, including antiseptic spraying if hit with human or animal bodily fluids; will never be PFAS-free, as the forever-toxins are required to extrude the individual ‘grass’ blades; has a life expectancy of 8 to 10 years; and is NOT recyclable, unless you believe that the one processing plant in the country that melts the plastic turf fields into a liquid, spewing toxins into the atmosphere, is recycling.

It is galling that a town that prides itself on preserving open space, develops conservation easements and resilience gardens to protect essential pollinators and habitats, that led the State years ago with a single-use plastic bag ban which is now State law, as well as passing the State’s first polystyrene ban, is now considering plastic playing fields for our children.

It is also galling that the most recently elected, so-called “Independents” on the School Committee have decided to replace Victory Field with artificial turf before the taxpayers in town have had an opportunity to weigh in. To add insult to injury, they are using surplus money from previous school budgets which we always understood to be used for school building maintenance and repairs necessary for compliance with State regulations.

Do not be fooled into believing that the current roster of “independents” running in this election are all open to public opinion and have no agenda. They do. The School Committee members’ actions, developed behind closed doors, speak volumes as to their lack of respect for the public process of the FTM, the special open meetings held on the fields’ issue by the Town Council, and most importantly, our opinion as taxpayers and voters.

I urge you to vote NO to questions 9 and 10 on the ballot, and vote FOR the Democrats running for Town Council and School Committee, as they are candidates who have been fully vetted by their party.

Kate Weymouth 

Scott Weymouth 

Barrington