The nonprofit organization that runs the major youth baseball program in New Canaan is giving the town $13,455 to re-sod and otherwise improve and maintain three of the fields the boys use.
With the funds from New Canaan Baseball in hand, work could start this week on the two little league fields in Mead Park, Mellick and Gamble, and on the baseball diamond at Saxe Middle School, according to John Howe, parks superintendent with the New Canaan Department of Public Works.
“We’re very happy,” Howe said during the Oct. 21 meeting of the Board of Selectmen, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department. The board approved by a 3-0 vote the contract between the town and Greg Twardy Landscaping ($11,099) and Read Custom Soils ($2,355) for sod, clay and repair work at the fields.
Selectman Nick Williams—who last month helped run a meeting of the Youth Sports Committee, a selectmen-appointed group charged with overseeing all youth programs in town, focusing on matters such as equitable use of fields and transparency in funding—thanked New Canaan Baseball and asked Howe about the work to be done. Specifically, Williams asked whether the parks department would have to the work even if New Canaan Baseball wasn’t funding the project.
“No, we wouldn’t,” Howe answered. “The work that we are looking to do, we would not have done.”
Williams clarified that at some point, not doing this work could create a safety problem which would prompt action by the town.
Howe said that the support from New Canaan Baseball does help the parks department in its day-to-day maintenance of regarding the fields to the proper pitch.
Asked to what extent the work would assist softball, Howe said: “This one won’t assist softball at all, because this work is for Mellick, Gamble and the Saxe baseball field. But indirectly it [does] because we are doing other work on the girls’ softball.”
Williams underscored that the money the town would have spent doing the work on the baseball fields can be used elsewhere, such as on improving other fields, including those used for softball.
First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said: “I am glad you bring that up, because it’s important that we treat all those fields [the same], softball and baseball.”
The town earlier this month approved about $30,000 to be spent improving the men’s rec softball and girls’ softball diamonds at Waveny.