Marion Parks Dept. unsure of footing bill for improvements
By Mark Randall
news@theeveningtimes.com
Marion has agreed to build new dugouts at the sports complex for softball for the school to use, but may see if Marion School District would be more interested in making Colonial Park its new home instead.
Parks and Recreation Director Andy Rawls told the city council that the school district has asked them to either expand or build new dugouts and has offered to chip in half or up to $20,000.
“About two years ago we agreed to do that as long as the school would be willing to participate for no less than 50 percent,” Rawls said. “I had given them a figure of about $40,000.”
Rawls said the current dugouts are too small for high school sports. They were built for a recreational league to hold about 12 kids in each dugout.
“You have teams now that come in that have 25 or 30 kids,” Rawls said. “Right now, we can’t put our whole team in the dugout out there.
The city built 45 foot dugouts at John Robbins Field in 2009 with 150 feet of knee-wall and 100 feet of four-foot sidewalk.
“Everything that had to be done to those dugouts we did pretty much for $35,000,” Rawls said. “All the same thing would have to be done this time.”
The dugouts are only 19 feet and would be expanded or rebuilt to 35 feet.
“We’d almost be doubling it,” Rawls said.
Rawls said the city has about $120,000 in the parks development fund it could use to pay for the project.
“That is exactly what this money was meant for — to improve parks,” said City Councilman Cliff Wood.
Councilman Kelly O’Neal disagrees. He says the school should be the one paying, not the city — especially since they aren’t paying any maintenance fees on the fields.
“I would just as soon see the school foot the whole bill,” O’Neal said. “If they can afford a million-dollar football field, they can afford to do something at the softball fields.”
Wood said the city has always had a good working relationship with the schools. As far as he is concerned, the city gave its word and should stick to it.
“It doesn’t change my word,” Wood said. “That’s all I’ve got. I don’t have a problem working with the schools. We’ve always had a good relationship with them.”
“I’ll work with them,” O’Neal responded. “As long as they pay for it. It ought to be their money. We’re already footing the mowing bill. I’m just concerned about us spending money on the schools and not doing anything for the kids in Marion that could use some more playgrounds.”
John Trough, a member of the city’s Parks and Recreation Committee, agreed with O’Neal.
“I kind of feel like Kelly does,” Trough said. “This is basically for the benefit of the school. What Andy is basing the numbers on is five years old. Today, we don’t know that it is going to be $40,000 or $48,000. I think they ought to have a larger investment.”
Wood said it might be a good time also to see if the school would be interested in using Colonial Park as their home field before they spend money on the dugouts.
“We might want to look and see what it would take to fix it up and see if the school wants to be involved in that,” Wood said.
Colonial Field is currently not being used.
Mayor Frank Fogleman said the idea has been talked about for some time.
“I think we could certainly look at that,” Fogleman said. “I’ve heard the idea before that they would like to have their own field.”
Fogleman said he agrees with Wood that he wouldn’t want to see the city back out from a prior commitment to expand the dugouts.
“We need to clarify what our commitment was,” Fogleman said. “But let’s start the bid process. It’s hard to make a decision until we know what the costs are.”
Rawls said he would get some bids for the dugouts and report back.
“I don’t think it’s going to cost us more than $35,000,” Rawls said.
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