Moving Kemper Memorial Back on School Drawing Board

by Judy Silberstein*

(November 10, 2003) The Mamaroneck School District is looking for an additional full-sized soccer field to accommodate an expanding enrollment and an explosion in the number of children playing field sports. They’ve scoured the community and are continuing to speak with municipal leaders about possible alternatives, but they are coming to the conclusion that the only practical way to squeeze in an extra field would require shifting land now devoted to the Kemper Memorial Park on the Boston Post Road.

The Board and the Kemper family would like to avoid a fight, but after months of private discussions, have yet to find an acceptable compromise. Feeling increasing time pressure, the Board reached out to the public on Friday, November 7 to explain its current position.

The first time the district proposed alterations at the Kemper Memorial was in 2000, when the Board was putting together a $50 million bond issue for capital improvements. A controversy ensued over changing a historical memorial and rather than risk defeat of the entire capital plan, the Board dropped the soccer field and went forward with a somewhat smaller bond issue that passed in the May 2001 referendum.

Fast forward to 2003: since May, the School Board has been in private conversations with the Kemper family, but as yet no solution has surfaced that is acceptable to both the schools and the family. On Friday, the School Board revealed that it has reopened the issue and believes it is honing in on a plan it feels will honor the spirit of the memorial, provide the park with an equal amount of space, improve traffic safety and flow in front of the school, and still eke out the extra field.

1. A Board proposal would turn the football field, add a soccer field (right) and create a deeper park (center) as large as the existing one (dark lines).

Reconfiguring the park is an option the family has yet to accept, said Richard Cantor, grandson of Adolph Kemper, who donated the park to the district in 1946 in memory of his son Richard and the 98 other local men and one woman who died serving the country during World War II. The family has not ruled out changing the park entirely, but would consider it only if no other viable option existed and only under specific conditions. “The conditions would have to satisfy the community, veterans’ groups, the Larchmont Historical Society, as well as the family,” said Cantor. “Conditions would include assurances to protect the park and its significance in the future,” he stressed.

As the Board learned in 2001, the family members living in the area retain a strong emotional attachment to the park and were deeply offended by the Board’s original plans and by its failure to locate the family and consult with them early on. To prevent the School Board proceeding with its plans, the Kemper family retained attorneys. Had the School Board not changed its plan, the family was prepared to fight the district in court – and in the court of public opinion.

Now two years later, the current School Board has been attempting to mend fences with Richard and Paul Cantor, Adolph Kemper’s grandsons, and with Jean Hofmann, their mother. The Board has apologized for their earlier missteps, and proposed a different set of plans that, they believe, would be more respectful of the memorial.

For their part, the family is still searching for a solution to the soccer problem that does not involve disturbing the park with its mature grove of trees. Richard Cantor met with the Gazette to recount his family’s point of view and to display alternate approaches for locating a soccer field on the Mamaroneck High School campus or in the surrounding communities. He has been in recent conversations with Village of Mamaroneck Mayor Phil Trifilletti and Town Supervisor Valerie O’Keeffe and believes that there is potential for locating an additional field in each municipality. The family has engaged landscape architect Richard Behr who has prepared drawings that show solutions they contend are preferable to the district’s plan. “In the long-run, the district will need to consider these satellite sites as demand for athletic space continues to grow,” he argued.

The Cantor family proposals, however, have not proved workable for the district. Board President Bob Martin outlined a number of concerns. Adding a field on municipal land would be problematic. Martin advised that Town Supervisor Valerie O’Keeffe has told them the schools should not consider use of the Town Center, as is suggested in one of Behr’s designs. With respect to a possible field at Harbor Island, Martin said, “We do not believe that, at this time, the Village of Mamaroneck is prepared to give the school district the control we would require.” Further, he added, “We do not know when the reconfigured fields at Harbor Island might become available. It’s a question of time, as well.” Two other family designs would not achieve the goal of allowing three fields to be used simultaneously (see: figure 2, below, for example), and/or would require reconstructing buildings at the high school. “That would be prohibitively expensive,” Martin suggested.

2. A Kemper family plan would add a soccer field in the track oval (top left) and move the baseball diamond to the Post Road (bottom right).

Yet, the designs developed by the district’s landscape architects have proved unacceptable to the family. In addition to disturbing the park, Mr. Cantor argued, the district plans would create safety hazards by placing the soccer field too close to the football field and to the Boston Post Road.

Each side believes it has the upper hand, should it come to a legal contest. Richard Cantor argues that the 1946 deed conveying the land from the Kempers to the district contains a restrictive covenant that prohibits the land being used for anything other than the memorial. However, Board President Martin said, “We have spoken with attorneys and have been informed that it is within our legal rights to pursue our plans.”

Is a meeting of the minds possible - without a legal fight?

Richard Cantor admitted that the family continues to harbor considerable mistrust of the district’s motives. "If the Board violates the current deed, why should our family believe a future Board would not violate a new deed if it became expedient to do so." In contacting the media this week, the School Board broke an agreement with him and his brother not to go public. “That is a breach of trust,” he said. For his 85 year-old mother, “This is tearing out her heart,” he added.

Nevertheless, he is willing to continue conversations with the Board. Despite impressions conveyed elsewhere in the media, both he and the Board are attempting to avoid a battle and to find an amicable solution.

*Judy Silberstein served on the Mamaroneck School Board from 1998-2001.

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