Warren Hills voters approve $5.5 million for new athletic facilities in Tuesday referendum

Less than a week before Tuesday's vote, former Warren Hills Regional High School football coach Joe Heverin predicted a referendum asking voters to approve spending $5.5 million for new athletic facilities would be met with a resounding yes.

He was right.

School district taxpayers voted 1,550-1,076, or 59 to 41 percent, to approve the proposal.

Heverin is the head of Friends of Blue Streaks Athletics, a group supporting the improvements put forth in Tuesday's referendum. The project will provide funding for a new track and turf football field, as well as new bleachers, a new field house, lighting and other projects.

Leading up to Tuesday's vote, the school district's Web site said many of the athletic facilities, including the track and bleachers, are deteriorating and unsafe, forcing several teams to compete or practice at other schools or on municipal fields.

Keith and Jodi McCaffrey, both of Washington, said Tuesday they voted in favor of the project to give student-athletes, including their sophomore son, a source of pride. The team now plays at the middle school field, and the project is expected to be completed their son's senior year.

"It would be a good thing to see him play at his high school," Keith McCaffrey said after casting his ballot.

The project was expected to cost taxpayers about $60 a year but is not anticipated to raise tax bills because it will replace an expiring 20-year bond for renovations in 1989, district officials had said.

"We don't need to spend $5 million on a new stadium when we could be using more for education," said Howard Huff, a Washington Township resident who voted against the measure.

Voters twice rejected a similar proposition in 2004.

In December of that year, voters approved $36.8 million to expand Warren Hills high and middle schools but rejected a second question that would have appropriated $6.1 million for a new athletic center and artificial turf field. Both proposals had been included in a single question earlier in 2004 and failed.