High School Field Lights Remain Out of Use

The Farmingdale School District continues to explore repair options for the lights on the high school turf field after they were damaged in

The damage forced the Farmingdale Athletics Department to reschedule all night games during the fall season. The district has had issues with the lights in the past and is looking for a long-term solution, according to Assistant Superintendent for Business Paul Defendini.

"After consultation with the Board of Education we decided we needed to provide a more complete remedy to the problem so this doesn't continue to happen on a regular basis," Defendini said at Wednesday's school board meeting. "That required us to engage the district architects, engineers and construction managers to develop a comprehensive plan to deal with it."

Defendini added that the district is working with LIPA and some other outside entities to defer some of the costs associated with the work.

Issues with the field lights were previously transformer-related. This storm damaged the cable that connects the building to the press box, a problem school board member Russ Catanzaro called "severe and costly."

The Athletics Departments has not been using the field for practice or games, but the district has kept on the security lights on the field, which allows the community to use the track at night and allows security to ensure safety in the area.

"As we have the opportunity to bid this out and we have some costs we can share, we will provide them to the Board of Education," Defendini said. "Then decisions can be made about what direction the board would like to go in to changing the turf field lights."