WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. By John F. Bailey. August 7, 2007: Superintendent of Schools Timothy Connors reports that the decision to clear the woods on the Havilands Lane side of the White Plains High School Campus was unauthorized today. Connors said Mike Lynch, Administrator of Buildings & Grounds, had unilaterally made the decision to add a field without telling anyone about it.

Cleared Wooded Area at High School. New Homeplate looking down new first baseline. WPHS Tennis courts are to the right. Fill from football field would be used to bring up the field to grade.

Connors said,  “One of our employees felt that we should take advantage of the soil being taken up from the football field and try to create another softball field. In his enthusiasm to do that, he moved forward with having some trees taken down. The difficulty with that is no one was aware of it, neither the Board or the Administration or the neighbors knew about it.”

Connors said, “I think his intentions were good. But our communications with the neighborhood were poor and then people didn’t know about it.They didn’t know what was being done. And, actually the persons coming in to remove the trees removed more than was anticipated and that concerned all of us. We put a stop to it. We’re looking at how do we look at the need for the baseball field and at the same time trying to make some adjustments that will enable us to plant some trees to help to restore the nice area that was behind those 4 or 5 houses.”

Connors said the official who made the decision was Mike Lynch, Administrator of Buildings & Grounds: “He intended well, but you don’t do those things without communicating. We’re going to work to resolve those issues.”

Asked what the plans were for the fill to start. Connors said “Part of the agreement with the contractors is that they take it away. He was just trying to capitalize. His intent was a good one. But there should have been some dialogue about it.”

He said he did not know how many trees were taken out. Connors said they were major-sized trees and it was “a shame to lose them.”

He said the  damage to the Varsity Softball field could be fixed with ground crew work by next season. Asked what the next step is on the cleared land, Connors said:

“We have to plan out exactly what they’re doing. I have promised the neighbors we would come back and tell them exactly what our next steps are. As soon as they have a plan to me, I’ll share it with the neighbors and I’ll share it with the Board. I don’t have a timeline when we’re going to get back to it.”

Asked when work on the field would resume, to have a field by next fall, Connors said, “Certainly cleaning up that property and doing that is the short term goal and we’ll get that done.”