Manchester Essex Playing Fields Committee
January 17, 2007
Essex Elementary School – Staff Room
7:30 p.m.
Members Present: Tom Kehoe, Greg Blagden, Sue Taylor, Hardy Nalley, Matt Casparius, Tony Giedt, Tom Arntsen, Jeff, Sandy Bodmer-Turner, Paul Goodwin, Tim O’Leary
1. Meeting called to order at 7:40 p.m.
2. Review of Meeting Minutes of 12/13/07. Motion to accept minutes – Hardy Nalley, 2nd – Greg Blagden. Minutes Accepted by all.
3. Review of Facility Tour:
On Friday, January 5th, Tom Kehoe, Tom Arntsen, Sue Taylor, Sandy Bodmer-Turner, and Matt Casparius went on facilities inspection tour of all facilities in Essex and Manchester. The following are comments and suggestions about some of the facilities:
Sue Taylor asked that we get maps of all fields with exact dimensions of the fields that are on them. Matt Casparius responded that he will gather the maps for Manchester. It was asked that Paul Goodwin get the maps for Essex.
There was discussion about possible uses for the middle field at Memorial Park in Essex. Possible ideas include U8 soccer and t-ball.
It was also discussed that the softball diamond at Memorial Field needs a backstop and fence in front of the player’s benches. One suggestion was to talk to the Manchester-Essex Rotary Club about some funding. Matt Casparius reported that he will find the list of prices and will talk to the Manchester-Essex Rotary Club.
It was suggested that the Field of Dreams 2 could be used for Fall Soccer since it did not have much use on it during that time.
The field at the Essex Elementary School is believed to be 50 feet x 100 feet. JV soccer has practiced there in the past and that is ok.
The group took a brief tour of Manchester Athletic Club Site, which is a former quarry and has a lot of land. The owner at the Manchester Athletic Club has come up with some schematics for possible field locations. The problem with this site is that he wants to be connected to the Town’s water and sewer, which would be extremely expensive. They would need to increase the sewer line from Essex Country Club all the way over.
The group met up with Bob Moroney at the DPW Yard on Pleasant Street. There are a number of challenges to putting fields on this site including where the current DPW yard would be moved to if fields were put in here. Second, there is a vernal pool on one side of the site, a rock face on a second side and houses on a third side. At best it looked like you could put in maybe 1 full sized soccer field & 1 small field or maybe a small softball diamond, but definitely not enough room for a full sized baseball diamond.
The group then visited Winthrop Field just to see what the land looked like and to talk about the deed restrictions to the property. Finally the group ended at Sweeney Park which was extremely wet in the back corner of the field. It had been asked at previous meetings whether Sweeney Park could be expanded or not. It looks as though we would have to replicate wetlands to expand the site at all. The School Building Committee architects had drawn up a map that looked at the possible baseball field at the back of Sweeney Park. This committee has not seen that map, so it was unclear if it was possible or not.
4. Fields Use Scheduling - Spring 2007
Sandy Bodmer-Turner thanked everyone for submitting their field schedules which she had compiled into one master schedule for review. She reported that since Brook Street is out, she had for the time being moved everything at Brook Street to Hyland Field.
The rest of Manchester’s Fields are booked pretty solidly. In Matt Casparius’ master schedule, he had Masconomo Park booked from 2:30 – 4:00 p.m. and was marked MERSD. Hardy Nalley reported that he thought that this time block was for the Ultimate Frisbee Club at the school and not for athletics. The front field at Memorial Field in Essex has some room on Saturdays. Paul Goodwin reported that this field no longer floods at high tide with the recent work that was done to the field.
It was thought that we may be able to move soccer that is currently at Brook Street to Memorial Field Middle Field for 7 days a week, so that Manchester Essex Little League can use Hyland Field in the spring. According to Sarah Creighton, Hyland Field will not be going away till at least June 1st. Traditionally there will be a 6-week bid window but she expects that there may be some delays and will most likely turn into 8 week window.
Tom Arntsen reported that Manchester-Essex Little League needs Evening Baseball at Hyland Field and Memorial Front Field for his program. If the Men’s Town team goes to Memorial Field will need to start earlier than their normal 7:00 p.m. time slot.
Looking at the schedule, it looks like Hyland Field may have some space available on weekends, which the group tentatively decided to slot in for baseball.
For Early in April, it is going to still be dark early. Maybe for Spring 2008, we may need to consider the installation of lights at Memorial Field.
5. Report to Board of Selectmen (Manchester)
Report was submitted to the Board of Selectmen last night indicating our concerns and needs to have lights at Brook Street. Matt Casparius will email a clean copy of this report to the School Building Committee, Essex Selectmen and School Committee.
We need to start contacting neighbors around Brook Street to talk about lights. It was suggested to have abutters meeting for public comment. Sarah Creighton suggested putting lights up for a 3 year trial and then come down afterwards. Tom Kehoe said it’s a nice idea in theory but would be extremely expensive to move the lights away if it wasn’t renewed after 3 years.
6. Action Items:
Matt Casparius will get pricing information for backstop and bench guards.
Hardy Nalley thought it would cost approximately $80,000 to move the lights from Hyland Field to Brook Street? The question is, what would that include? All costs or just the physical lights and there would still be the expense of wiring, etc. Greg Blagden will talk to Musco Lighting to get a better idea on the cost? Tim O’Leary will talk to Sarah Creighton about light costs and how she wants to proceed; he will then report back to Matt Casparius with the information.
Sandy Bodmer-Turner, Hardy Nalley, Tom Kehoe, and Mike Athanas will go to some of the key neighbors and have a listening session about their concerns with the lights. The idea is to hear their concerns which will also help us prepare for the Public Hearings.
The is a problem with current lights on the Brook Street Tennis Courts, which is that it is an old system and needs to be updated and computerized. The current timer has a tendency to break down and is also affected by power outages so the lights don’t always go off when they should. Maybe we can upgrade tennis lighting system at the same time as we install the lights on the soccer field which will help us to appease the neighbors. Matt Casparius said that he will look into the cost of upgrading the tennis court lights.
Tom Kehoe has been asked to put report in Manchester Annual Report. He is working on a draft to submit.
Next Meeting: February 13th at 7:30 pm – Location TO BE ANNOUNCED
Adjourned 9:17 p.m.
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