Manchester-Essex Playing Fields Committee
11/15/06
Members Present: T. Geidt, M. Christopher, S. Bodmer-Turner, G. Blagden, T. Arnsten, H. Nalley, T. Kehoe, J. Jones, S. Taylor, P. Goodwin, J. O’Neil, T’ O’Leary
Guest Present: Chris Nesbit
The meeting was called to order at 7:33 p.m. by temporary chairman Kehoe. Mr. Kehoe went over committee housekeeping issues including the following:
A. Posting of all meetings in both Towns.
B. All meetings are public meetings.
C. All members must be sworn in by their respective Town Clerk
D. The committee was established by the Manchester Board of Selectman and the Essex Board of Selectman as an advisory committee to make recommendations on field needs, field usage and policies regarding field costs & charges.
The Playing Fields Committee Charge was distributed and discussed. The Email contact list of all committee members was distributed.
Hardy Nalley brought up and discussed the newest School Building Committee (SBC) plans for Brook Street (Coach Field Playground). The new plans call for not raising the field on flood storage pipes as initially proposed, but putting a new synthetic turf that will be able to be covered with water if/when flooding occurs and still be usable. The lack of availability of Hyland Field for Spring 2007 may make lights at Brook Street a necessity.
The Manchester Essex Playing Fields Committee discussed how to start the task. It was agreed to establish a baseline of field usage for each season. The baseline will allow the Committee to establish a list of field needs for each season. The following groups will be asked to provide information for this survey:
Greg Blagden |
Spring & Fall Soccer |
Tom Arnsten |
Manchester-Essex Little League Baseball |
Sue Taylor |
Manchester-Essex Softball |
Hardy Nalley |
Manchester-Essex Regional School District Sports |
Mike Christopher |
Jr. Hornets Football |
Sue Taylor |
Essex Shipbuilders Soccer |
Tom Arnsten/Brian LaFata |
Intertown Baseball |
Greg Blagden/John Graves |
Men’s Soccer Club |
Jim O’Neil/Mark Haskell |
Senior Babe Ruth Baseball |
Sue Taylor/Marilyn Klypka-Simpson |
Essex Youth Commission |
Tom Kehoe/Matt Casparius |
Manchester Recreation |
Tom Kehoe/Don Towle |
Manchester Playground Program |
Sandy Bodmer-Turner will develop a reporting form and distribute it to the membership for reporting.
Each community has had a previous fields committee. Tom Kehoe (M) and Jeff Jones (E) will invite members of the previous fields Committee in each community to attend the next Manchester-Essex Playing Fields Committee Meeting.
Tim O’Leary volunteered to get the most up-to-date information from the School Building Committee for our next meeting.
Election of Officers:
At the next meeting, we will need to elect a Chair, Vice Chair and Secretary for this committee. (Matt Casparius has volunteered to be the secretary).
The Committee discussed a two-leveled way to work on fields issues.
First: We have an immediate need for the next two to three years due to the MERSD
construction project.
Second: We have a long term goal of handling the long-term use and care of the fields necessary for all teams to use.
During both phases of the task, we must always look for new field areas.
It was the sense of the committee than an interim report could be made to the Board of Selectman in each community. It was decided to produce a preliminary plan by the end of January for Spring 2007 field usage.
The next meeting will take place on Wednesday, December 13th, 2006 in the Manchester Town Hall, Room #5 at 7:30 p.m. For future meetings, the plan will be to alternate meetings between Manchester and Essex starting in January.
Meeting Adjourned at 9:03 p.m.
Respectfully Submitted,
Tom Kehoe
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