Donations, not insurance, to cover fire’s $40K cost
RIDGEFIELD — Costs estimated at about $40,000 from the field fire at Governor Park won’t be covered by insurance, but anonymous donations already coming in are expected to provide enough to handle the town’s expenses, according to First Selectman Rudy Marconi.
“No taxpayer dollars are being used,” Marconi told the Board of Selectmen Wednesday night, April 17.
“We’ve completed restoration,” he said. “Fresh clay was brought in.”
The Ridgefield Police Department closed its investigation into the incident Thursday, April 18, without revealing any names of who was responsible for pouring gasoline and lighting it in attempt to make the wet field playable for the Ridgefield High School baseball team.
“Town Officials no longer wish to press criminal charges,” said Capt. Shawn Platt in a press release. “Anyone seeking further information may contact the Ridgefield Town Hall.”
Stephen J. Sedensky III, state's attorney for the Judicial District of Danbury, told The Press Thursday that the town was not pursuing criminal action claims because restitution had been made.
“From my understanding, the town is not interested in pursuing criminal action because there was a restitution,” he said.
“Our primary concern is that the victim is made whole,” Sedensky said. "The victim, in this case being the town, feels the necessary restitution was made...
“Sometimes restitution comes from the person involved in the behavior, sometimes it comes from other sources,” he added.
Over 60 yards of material contaminated earth and clay was removed from the infield — between first and second base, and second and third base — of the high school baseball field, he said, to repair damage done when people attempted to use fire to dry out the wet field so a game could be played on Saturday, April 6.
“All test result are in — clear of contaminants,” Marconi said Wednesday night.
“According to Moran Environmental it is $30,000, plus the cost of restoration,” Marconi said of the cleanup. “I think a maximum of another $10,000.”
Marconi said he’d read online that high school coaches at the scene of the fire that day — who’d been suspended — were now back coaching.
Neither the police nor the first selectman’s office had been consulted or informed of that decision, he said later.
“They must have felt suspension for a week was adequate — I’m not disagreeing with that,” he said. Marconi said that “four or five” donations were expected to cover the anticipated cost of about $40,000. The town had already received two checks as of Wednesday, he said, and another was expected Thursday.
The donations were anonymous, and were coming to the town through a trustee account overseen by an attorney, Marconi told the selectmen.
Selectman Steve Zemo said Thursday he didn’t expect the name —or names — of who was responsible to be made public with the police investigation officially closed.
“All I was saying [last night] is that this was a teaching moment for the kids,” he said. “... If it were kids we’d ask them to be responsible and make amends . ...
“I’m not looking for names for any sort of retribution — I don’t care who the person is,” he said. “But I thought it would have been a nice moment for the person responsible to just say, ‘it’s me and I was a dad’ or ‘I was a mom’ or ‘I was an adult’ —whoever it was —and ‘I thought this was a good idea and it wasn’t’ and then as a community for us to acknowledge the mistake and show compassion towards that person.”