Pop Warner to get multipurpose building Boro will go out to bid on $416K project BY LINDA DeNICOLA Staff Writer TINTON FALLS - The Pop Warner football organization hopes to be playing on its own field with bathrooms and a concession stand when the season starts in August. The first practice will be Aug. 1 and the first game will be during the third week of that month. Both Bryan Dempsey, borough business administrator, and Al Neis, a member of the Pop Warner executive board, acknowledge that they have a lot of work to do. The project will begin once an amendment to the bond ordinance to provide funding for the construction of a multipurpose recreation building at Liberty Park II is approved by the Borough Council. It will then go out for bid. The ordinance appropriates $416,000, which includes a Monmouth County Open Space matching grant of $208,000. The ordinance authorizes the issuance of $252,700 in bonds or notes to finance part of the cost. Dempsey said Mayor Peter Maclearie and council members were concerned with the cost of the building, which was originally expected to be around $500,000. "They thought it was a lot of money to build just a building. Pop Warner had an architect draw up plans for what they thought they needed. In addition, they [Pop Warner] said that some of their members are in the construction field and may be able to help with the construction," he said. "We will amend the application with Open Space to include the new layout with the concessions, bathrooms and storage all in one building. It wasn't laid out the way Pop Warner needs it." He added that Pop Warner feels that the building can be constructed for less than $416,000, but to utilize the full amount, the project will include bleachers, similar to the ones at Monmouth Regional High School, and a press box. Dempsey said they are going out for bids by the end of the month. "It should be awarded by the end of June and construction started before the Pop Warner season begins in August," he said. "I don't foresee any problems. Pop Warner is really behind this and working with us. Once we award a contract, Pop Warner will help get it done." Neis said he grew up in the Pop Warner program. He said the team has been playing on the field at Monmouth Regional High School for over 20 years, at least since he was a boy playing on the Pop Warner football team. "We've never had a home before," he said. The Jersey Shore Pop Warner Football League began in Tinton Falls in 1961. The organization provides a football program for boys and girls ages 7 to 15, and was started in 1929 and named after college coach Glen Scobey (Pop) Warner. "It's been a long, hard road getting everything put together - the property, the fields and the concession stand. The concession stand is important. It's how we make our living," Neis said. He explained that there is now a fence around the field that Pop Warner paid for out of fundraising money, and the player benches are going on the field on Saturday. They, too, are being paid for by the Pop Warner organization that has coached numerous teams for four decades. Liberty Park II was dedicated on June 14, 2005, and it will be three years since ground was broken in August 2004. The borough bought the land to create the large park in the southern end of town for $1.3 million with money from its open space tax of 1.5 cents per $100 of property value. The cost was subsidized by state Department of Environmental Protection Green Acres Program funds. The borough was one of several towns that received the substantial county open space grant. Dempsey explained that the grant has to be used for a facility, and restrooms are needed at the popular park on West Park Avenue. He said that Pop Warner will be the main user, but the park is used much of the time, because it is not just ballfields. Besides the two football fields, there's a dog track, basketball court, walking track, a small tot lot playground, a gazebo, and a baseball/softball field in the back. The grants for land acquisition and development for park recreation and open-space purposes are made possible by the Monmouth County Municipal Open Space Grant Program, a competitive matching-funds program for municipalities sponsored by the county board and administered by the Monmouth County Park System.