Town to draft MOU for use of baseball fields

(8/20) Following the decision last month by the Town Council to allow a local resident associated with a 14-and-under and 18-and-under boys traveling baseball team to refurbish the town’s baseball field located next to the new skateboard park, representatives of the New-Midway-Woodsboro Recreational Council challenged the decision, stating that according to a 1993 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), they had the exclusive rights to use of the field.

A perplexed Burgess Barnes, however, stated that the 1993 MOU was superseded by a 2016 MOU that did not give the Recreational Council exclusive use of the field and that the Town was in the process of drawing up a new MOU on its use.

The field, the smaller of the town’s two ball fields, was originally constructed by the Recreational Council as a softball field, hence its small size. Later it was converted to a "kids" baseball field and then back to a softball field, said Councilman Bill Rittlemeyer.

But, for at least the last three years, the field has gone unused and unmaintained. As a result, the dirt infield has been taken over by grass and weeds and the outfield looks like a pasture.

The Recreational Council said that the reason they had not done any work on the field was because they were told not to perform any maintenance on the field until the new MOU was drawn up and signed by both parties.

Recreational Council representatives said that they would be loath to spend money on upgrading and maintaining the fields if others would be allowed to come in and "undo" their work. "We don’t want to put money into building batting and foul ball nets if another team can take them down or damage them."

The tacit request by the Recreational Council for exclusive use of the fields did not sit well with Burgess Barnes, who said he would work with town staff to fast track the work on the new MOU, but was not supportive of an exclusive use agreement on both parts.

"Given that the Recreational Council has only one baseball team, I see no sense in giving them exclusive use of both fields. One maybe, but not both. These are town facilities and should be open to all residents to use."

Barnes suggested that the smaller field can and should be used on a "reserved" basis, with those wishing to use it reserving it in advance, much like they do the town tennis courts.

At the July meeting, Rittlemeyer, who serves as the Park Commissioner for the Town, was supportive of the use of the smaller field by the 14-and-under traveling baseball team but was against its use by 18-year-olds.

"Eighteen-year-olds can hit a ball harder than 14-year-olds, so with 18-year-olds, we are going to have more foul balls falling into yards of homes adjacent to the field along Copper Oaks Court."

The resident requesting its use acknowledged Rittlemeyer’s concern, as did Barnes, but the requestor said the issue could be alleviated by a higher back stop fence or fencing along the 3rd base baseline, which the traveling team would pay for.

Barnes said the Town was in fast development of a new MOU with the Recreation Council that will set out the terms of their use of the town’s ball fields.