Mayor pursues dome plan for three basketball courts

MARLBORO - Mayor Robert Kleinberg said municipal officials are working on a deal that would allow them to build a dome over the basketball courts behind the Marlboro Recreation Community Center off Wyncrest Road.

The basketball courts were built with state Green Acres money for outdoor recreational purposes and cannot be enclosed under the Green Acres regulations, the mayor said.

Speaking at the May 17 Township Council meeting, Kleinberg said officials came up with the idea of swapping the land where the basketball courts were built with a 3-acre parcel that lies between the Marlboro Middle School and the Marlboro library.

The 3-acre parcel would become the Green Acres parcel and would be a larger piece of property than the land where the basketball courts are located, Kleinberg said.

The Marlboro Board of Education donated the 3 acres of wetlands between the library and the middle school to the township and that is the parcel the town wants to turn over to the state in exchange for the right to enclose the basketball courts behind the recreation building, the mayor said.

"It's land the Board of Education couldn't have used. This is an example of the out-of-the-box thinking the current council and I have used to improve the quality of life for residents with no cost to the taxpayer," Kleinberg said.

He said Green Acres administrators have given Marlboro verbal approval for the deal and a formal judgment is pending from the state regarding the swap.

The township has not secured financing for the planned dome over the basketball courts and the idea of the dome itself is still being researched, Business Administrator Judith Tiernan said.

She said the first step in the process was getting permission from the state to enclose the three basketball courts.

"We haven't wanted to proceed too far into the whole thing until we were sure we could get Green Acres (administrators) to agree," Tiernan said.

In other council news, a $5.5 million bond ordinance was approved on May 17. Improvements and capital purchases include road repairs, an ambulance, dump trucks with snow plows and radio communications equipment.

- Victoria Hurley-Schubert