8/1/2005 Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Minutes of a Meeting of The North Olmsted Parks and Recreation Commission August 1, 2005 Mr. Limpert said that these are some of the things that need to be thought out. Fortunately, nothing is happening until next spring, but this is not something that Mr. Limpert thought should be just walked away from tonight by saying that it’s a done deal and fine and then later find out that we didn’t think of something else. Mr. DiSalvo said that it could be most likely only for the High School season, March through May (with the responsibility of installation, take down and storage), as it would interfere too much with the other Rec Center programs. Mr. Murphy asked, “Why is it we can’t have a baseball field in this town. We are the only city for miles and miles without a full-time, full sized baseball field in our city. Period. We do not have a regulation diamond. In the summer time that is a problem. Balls will go into the street quicker in the summer time than they ever go in the spring, because that ground is like cement.” Mr. Limpert suggested Mr. Murphy chair a levy for that purpose; Mr. Limpert has chaired a few. Mr. Murphy replied that because every time he has come up with a situation he’s gone to Ted (DiSalvo) and said that they (the schools) will raise the money. They say they don’t have any money. Mr. Murphy said that they had an agreement that this was going to get done. Mr. Limpert asked where the agreement was made. Mr. Murphy replied that the agreement was made out in the field last May when the schools had to move every single one of its home games to the road. They had to go and play on other teams’ fields for two straight years. Mr. Murphy continued…. “I live in this town. I’m tired of being a laughingstock in recreation when it comes to our field. I’m tired of our kids going out and getting that rub that we don’t have a place to play, and I expect our leaders of this town and our politicians to be problem solvers, not problem creators. I’ve been the coach for 15 years. I’ve been at this for 15 years trying to get something done with this. It was O.K. for the softball people to go and buy a fence and put it up. Why can’t the baseball people ever do it? That happened. We got bumped off the field we were on for a long time. I sat right here while Diamond No. 1 was going to be remodeled for a Hot Stove Field. It was great. Diamond 2 was going to be the softball field, and Diamond 3 was going to be a baseball field that was fenced in. And where did that go? It got to last spring, when I went out there on Good Friday with our J.V. Coach to look at Diamond 5, our new J.V. field where they brought in all the dirt from 480. They had rocks from the state which was totally unplayable for the entire J.V. season. We had to move every single one of our Varsity games off there last year ‘cuz teams won’t play here. We can’t hold a state tournament game here. The teams won’t play. There is no team that will come here and play. And the Trinity people were furious when they played. That was the last game that we played on that field. Four balls went out into the street.” Mr. Limpert said that, as a communicator, this is the first he had heard about it with the exception of that letter. Mr. Murphy replied, “Well, I’ll tell you what. You’re just new on the job, too, because with Mr. Jesse we had an agreement, and I’ve said repeatedly that I would be a part of raising money, because every time you come in to anybody in the City we don’t have any Page 4