Flooding keeps closing the high school fields; $196,760 repair proposed

What happened

Flooding at the Ridgewood High School fields has become a recurring problem. The board made a flood contingency plan one of its five 2026 goals, so that teams know which fields they can play on, and lined up a repair contractor and flood insurance in advance rather than bidding after each storm. In August 2026 Ridgewood Junior Football told the joint fields group that three fields were unavailable days before its season opened. The September 28, 2026 agenda proposes a co-operative-pricing contract with FieldTurf USA to remediate the synthetic surfaces at the high school and Stevens Stadium, at a cost not to exceed $196,760.

Why it matters to families

Several hundred district and youth athletes lose practice and game space every time the fields flood, and the repair bill recurs. The same pressure sits behind a contested proposal to install artificial turf at the Benjamin Franklin Middle School field, which residents have opposed on chemical and groundwater grounds and which the superintendent said in March 2026 is not funded in the 2026-27 budget.

The evidence

The September 28, 2026 agenda contains the FieldTurf resolution, the Bergen Bids co-operative contract number and the $196,760 ceiling, and refers back to an original June 15, 2026 resolution. The January 29, 2026 minutes contain the 2026 board goal on flood mitigation and the board member statements about flood insurance and a pre-awarded repair contract. The August 4, 2026 fields minutes record the three flooded fields. Approved minutes for September 28 are not yet published, so the contract is described as proposed.

The source