Community Corner

RTM Divided Over Girls' Little League Field Days Before Vote

Emotions Run High at Committee Meetings

The debate over whether the town should spend $350,000 to build a girls' Little League field on town-owned property on Hoyden's Lane has all the emotion of a tied Red Sox-Yankees game in the 9th inning.

Town officials have threatened to take a field away from the boys' Little League and to advocate for the sale of the 9.42 acres at 520 Hoyden's Lane if the 50-member Representative Town Meeting rejects the $350,000 funding request Monday night.

Neighbors who don't want the girls' Little League field built on Hoyden's Lane have threatened to sue the town and said Wednesday night that RTM members who coach or have children in boys' Little League should recuse themselves from voting Monday night since they now have a personal stake in the outcome of the vote.

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James Millington, the RTM's majority leader, said e-mails have been numerous and nasty and that some RTM members serving their first term have said they won't run for re-election in November 2011 due to the tone and volume of e-mails and phone calls they've received about the controversial funding request.

On Monday and Wednesday nights, RTM members met in committees and voted on the $350,000 funding request. The combined tally was 16 in favor, 25 opposed and five abstentions. But RTM Moderator Jeff Steele, R-2, who spoke in favor of the funding request, had to miss his committee's vote to give a presentation on an ordinance that he is sponsoring, so the combined vote probably should be 17-25-5.

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Gerald Lombardo, director of the town's Parks and Recreation Department, said the $350,000 isn't just to build a girls' Little League field; it's also to create infrastructure for a park, such as a new driveway, parking lot, restroom building, septic system, electricity and a well.

Lombardo said the town has 257 acres of parkland, but only 50 acres are usable for playing fields. He noted that Gould Manor Park is 13.2 acres, but playing fields account for only 2.6 acres due to a large pond in the park and rock ledge.

Lombardo said girls' Little League, which includes 26 teams and 331 players who now play on a variety of fields in town, would lose Fairfield Warde High School's field and Sturges Park next spring because the pitching rubber will be moved from 40 feet to 43 feet away from home plate and it's not safe to have two pitching rubbers on a ball field.

"It is a need, it's not a want," Lombardo said of the girls' Little League field on Hoyden's Lane. "We have to put the children somewhere. They're growing."

But residents who live near the property said Hoyden's Lane was the wrong location for the girls' Little League field and that RTM members had campaigned in 2009 on a platform of fiscal restraint.

Kirk Manley, of Hoyden's Lane, said teachers last fall accepted 0 percent salary increases, and, last spring, town boards cut $3 million from the Board of Education's budget and the RTM cut $250,000 for new bathrooms at Timothy Dwight School.

"It seems unthinkable, just a few weeks later, the RTM would vote to spend $350,000," Manley said, adding that girls' Little League was a private organization, while the town-owned property at 520 Hoyden's Lane was now open to everyone.

Manley added that Hoyden's Lane was too narrow and curvy for a lot of traffic and that chemicals used on the field could adversely impact groundwater, in an area where homeowners get water from wells, and the nearby Hemlock Reservoir, which supplies drinking water to 600,000 people.

"This area cannot handle more development without severe repercussions," Manley said.

But Gary Gulemi, president of the girls' Little League, said, "It's not like we're putting a nuclear power plant up there."

"This is a girls' Little League field. It's going to take a couple of acres," he said.

Gulemi said the league, because it doesn't have a home field, operates out of lock boxes, trunks of cars and a garage. "Other teams have dedicated softball fields. We're asking that the town give us what was given to the boys years ago - just a field," he said. "We're being perceived around town in a negative light, and I resent that. This is, if anything, a gender equity and equality topic."

Selectman James Walsh said the town had more than 1,000 acres of passive open space and the lack of a girls' Little League field amounted to an "equity issue" because boys' Little League had two dedicated fields in town - one behind Mill Hill School and another in Tunxis Hill.

But RTM member Kathryn Braun, R-8, disputed Walsh's claim, saying girls could play in the boys' Little League, and other RTM members said the girls weren't being denied the opportunity to play, just to have a home field.

Steele, a coach in boys' Little League, said the girls' Little League, while it was a private organization, was open to all girls and that the field would serve more than this year's 331 girls - he said it would serve hundreds of girls every year for many years to come.

"This is something that's going to last forever...This is $350,000 over forever. It's a very smart financial decision because the value is going to last forever," Steele said.

Ellery Plotkin, chairman of the town's Parks and Recreation Commission, said the girls' Little League field would add 15 cars to traffic that already existed for other recreation facilities in Hoyden's Hill, such as the H. Smith Richardson Golf Course and the golf course's driving range.

Bryan LeClerc, a former RTM member, said he remembered how strenuously Greenfield Hill residents objected to building an adult softball field behind Timothy Dwight School, based on many of the concerns voiced by Hoyden's Hill residents, but he didn't hear a word from them after the softball field was built.

"Girls softball is one of the least intensive uses of fields in town," said First Selectman Ken Flatto.

Several neighbors disputed Lombardo's contention that the girls' Little League field couldn't use an existing field as a home field.

"My big problem here is we want our children to have ball fields...but there are many fields if you manipulate them correctly," said Larry Jursch, a longtime resident of the Hoyden's Hill section of town. "You're tearing people's hearts out that live up here."

Jursch said spending $350,000 when people are losing their homes due to foreclosure was "idiotic" and that Hoyden's Lane was the wrong location for an athletic field.

"If this goes through some way, we're going to slap this town with a lawsuit," Jursch said.

Walsh said he served on a committee about six years ago that tried to find land for soccer fields and the one place they found - the 58.5-acre Hoyden's Hill Open Space Area, which is under the Conservation Commission's jurisdiction - encountered significant opposition from Hoyden's Hill residents.

Several RTM members said the demand for playing fields for girls' Little League may be temporary, since soccer is not as popular in Fairfield today as it was six years ago.


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