PeoplesBank gets naming rights for new scoreboard

Date: 7/20/2011

July 20, 2011

By Debbie Gardner

Assistant Editor

WEST SPRINGFIELD — West Springfield High School’s Clark Field will be sporting a new scoreboard by the end of September, thanks to a donation by Holyoke-based PeoplesBank

By a vote of 3-2, the School Committee agreed to give the bank naming rights to the new board during its July 12 meeting.

West Springfield School Superintendent Russell Johnston told the School Committee the bank had approached his department and expressed interest in making a donation to supply the new scoreboard.

“As part of the grand opening celebration for our first office in West Springfield, which we also believe is the first environmentally friendly Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED )Registered building in the town, we committed $68,800 in donations to civic and charitable organizations,” Douglas A. Bowen, president and CEO of PeoplesBank said. “As part of those gifts to the community, we are happy to donate $43,000 for the new high school football field scoreboard.

Johnston presented the committee with copies of a tentative rendering of the proposed 26-foot-by 22-foot scoreboard, provided by Hampden Engineering of East Longmeadow at the committee’s July 12 meeting. Assistant Superintendent Kevin McQuillan told Reminder Publications the project had not yet gone out to bid, and he was not certain Hampden Engineering would be bidding to construct the project.

Johnston said construction was slated to begin in the fall, and that the new scoreboard would be removed and stored when planned renovations to Clark Field take place as a part of the construction of the new high school.

Johnston said the School Committee’s vote would give PeoplesBank the permanent right to put its name on the scoreboard.

School Committee Member David Sullivan said the field “certainly needed” a new scoreboard, but he was troubled by the motion to give PeoplesBank permanent naming rights.

“I thought advertising was not consistent with our policy,” Sullivan said. ”Although I recognize the donation is consistent with our policy, this is a slippery slope.”

He noted that banks buy other banks, merge, and change names and asked if the name on the scoreboard would be changed if that happened with PeoplesBank.

Mayor Edward Gibson said no, that a vote to accept the naming rights would give that right to PeoplesBank for the life of the scoreboard.

School Committee Member Nancy Farrell asked the cost of constructing a scoreboard such as the one in the proposed illustration.

Gibson said the cost would be “about $45,000, but it could rise up to $50,000 with the putting up and taking down.”

Debbie Gardner can be reached by e-mail at debbieg@thereminder.com