Stonington — The town has reopened the high school's all-purpose field, which had been closed since the fall of 2014, after completing repairs and paying an additional $18,000 to have them done.

The field was reopened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony just before a youth lacrosse game on Sunday. It was the first activity on the field since early October 2014.

“The long story of the all-purpose field has finally come to a happy ending,” said First Selectman Rob Simmons, who was not first selectman when the problems began.

Simmons said the bonding company overseeing the repairs wanted the town to accept the field a few months ago with verbal assurances the remaining work would be done.

But Simmons said selectmen refused because they wanted all the work to be completed and inspected by town officials before accepting the project and making the final payment.

Simmons said the field is now in good shape, having been rebuilt, regraded, resodded and rolled.

The field was closed after work by the original contractor, Aqua Turf Irrigation of Orange, resulted in an uneven surface and unsafe playing conditions.

The closure forced the high school girls’ soccer team and other teams to use other fields.

The town had hired Aqua Turf even though a Google search showed that the company had run into similar field problems in Weston and Canterbury and walked off those jobs.

Town officials said they were not aware of those problems and had checked the references provided by Aqua Turf.

Public Works Director Barbara McKrell had said that the town had to hire Aqua Turf because it was the lowest bidder and state law required the town to hire the firm submitting the lowest qualified bid.

But the law did not apply in this circumstance and town regulations allowed it to “reject any and all bids, if in their judgment, it is in the best interests of the town to do so.”

After the town closed the field, it notified the insurance company that held the performance bond for the project that Aqua Turf was in default for failure to construct the field according to the terms of the contract.

The town initially paid Aqua Turf $98,137.

The town then began negotiations with the bonding company to decide if the company would hire a firm to repair the field or reimburse the town for the money it paid Aqua Turf.

The bonding company hired BDE Sports Turf of Monroe to complete the work.

According to the BDE website, it has performed field services for numerous public and private high schools in the state, the U.S. Military Academy, U.S. Naval Academy, Sacred Heart and Fairfield universities and the Bridgeport Bluefish Minor League baseball team.

The bonding company paid an additional $115,000 to make the repairs, for a total of $213,137, which was $18,136 more than what was budgeted for the project; the town was responsible for the cost overruns.

Former First Selectman George Crouse had said the increase in cost was due to inflation.

Work on the all-purpose field was part of the $2.7 million bond approved by voters to upgrade the school’s deteriorating grass fields and install an artificial turf football field.

j.wojtas@theday.com