FHA Hints Youth Academy Operations Could Go 24-Hours

By John Voket

The Fairfield Hills Authority voted unanimously and provisionally to expand campus hours of operation from its present dawn to dusk policy, to a 5 am to midnight schedule to accommodate the Newtown Youth Academy’s projected hours of operation, which authority members were told would be from 6 am to 11 pm daily.

But authority member Andrew Willie told his fellow authority members that the proposed expansion of campus hours might be temporary.

“They want to go 24/7,” he said, referring to the huge indoor sports center that has reportedly morphed from a venue primarily designed for indoor court and field sports with a modest reception area and locker rooms to a full service health facility offering cutting-edge fitness equipment, services like personal training and specialty instruction, a juice bar and snack bar, in addition to three indoor basketball courts and a cavernous artificially turfed soccer field.

Youth Academy founder Peter D’Amico confirmed that a full service health club would be part of the nonprofit organization’s operation, but said the 24/7 operating hours were planned to accommodate cleaning and maintenance crews, versus late night members looking to work out.

In hearing the news about expanding campus hours of operation, several authority members expressed concerns about increasing security and any potential liabilities the town may face as traffic suddenly increases exponentially after the sports facility’s projected opening November 1.

Authority members discussed the challenge of stipulating on campus signage that individuals on the campus during early morning and late night hours should be there exclusively because they have business in the sports center.

“We don’t want people parking and wandering up onto the unlit trails in the dark,” authority member John Reed said.

Authority members were told that the only way local police could enforce no trespassing guidelines would be if campus signs specifically referred to persons going directly to or from the youth academy.

In other authority business, the committee decided to move its regular meetings from the second Tuesday of each month to the second Wednesday, in part, for members who had developing Tuesday conflicts. Chairman Robert Geckle said in particular, member Walter Motyka was commuting back to Newtown on Tuesdays from a job site in Philadelphia, just to turn around and drive back to Pennsylvania on Wednesdays.

Since Mr Motyka was not required to be in Philadelphia on Thursdays, moving the meetings to Wednesday would help ensure he could be on hand to lend his expertise on large scale developments and reuse projects similar to what Newtown is carrying out at the former state hospital campus.

Authority member Amy Dent said to conform with open meeting statutes, the remaining Tuesday Authority meetings would have to be cancelled, then readvertised as special Wednesday meetings until the group formally adopted the new day in an annual schedule due to be filed with the town clerk in February 2009.

The authority learned this week that the Rotary Club of Newtown is planning to offer the town a significant landscaping improvement project on the campus, which will likely include the greenway at the campus center. Besides reviewing a very preliminary plan, authority members agreed the proposal will be fully examined with invited guests from the local service group during upcoming meetings.