Amaral Ball Fields May Miss Another Season

By Steve Bigham

A landscape architect for the Amaral property ball fields said this week that work on the town-owned property along Elm Drive would need to commence by July 1 in order to have it ready for baseball next spring.

Vince McDermott of Milone and MacBroom Architects of Cheshire told the Parks & Recreation Commission Tuesday night that “the earth has to be moved” within the next three weeks. Otherwise, he said, baseball fields will be out of the question for Spring 2001.

Work needed to be done entails, among other things, bringing in 16,000 cubic yards of fill, a job that has been placed on the shoulders of the town’s Public Works Department. On Wednesday, Director Fred Hurley said it would be impossible to bring in that much fill in such a short period of time. Much of that fill will come from the Hawleyville sewer project, which has not even started yet.

“He’s not going to have it all there by July 1. That’s absurd,” Mr Hurley said. “I would say by the end of the summer we would have it to the point where a private contractor can come in and do its thing.”

Mr Hurley, who had still not seen site plans for the project, said it would be unfair to make any promises now as to whether or not the fields will be ready by next spring. Weather is always a factor, as is the contractor’s ability to have the project finished within such a short period of time. We may want to give the turf a year before we use it, too, Mr Hurley said.

In late April, the town rejected a proposed town budget that would have provided $550,000 for the development of the Amaral property. The Legislative Council was then forced to make cuts and the Amaral Property was among the handful of line items on the hit list – getting reduced by $200,000. First Selectman Herb Rosenthal suggested the town could make up that lost funding using fill from past town projects and the upcoming Hawleyville sewer project. He also suggested that employees from the Public Works Department do the work.

Commission member Ray Craven, having little faith in the town, suggested Tuesday that the town simply hire someone to do the preliminary work. “We ought to get somebody in and get the thing going. There’s no way the town will get there by July 1. I’ll be surprised if they’re there by September,” he said.

Mr McDermott said his firm is about 90 percent complete with its site plans. However, the town must still answer some fundamental questions. First, he asked, what is the town going to do? Will they do approximately $200,000 worth of work as previously outlined? When are they going to do it?

“There are a lot of questions that need to be resolved,” Mr McDermott  said.

The landscape architectural firm was forced to rework its original cost estimate, assuming the town did much of the preliminary work.

  Three years ago, the town spent $400,000 to purchase a 13-acre stretch of land along Elm Drive. The “Amaral Property” was eventually turned over to Parks & Recreation to be used for future ball fields.

The original cost estimate to build the fields was $550,000 – a high cost due to wetland areas on the parcel. Two retaining walls need to be installed in addition to the extra drainage and irrigation systems. That project appeared in jeopardy until both Mr Hurley and Mr Rosenthal came up with this new plan.

“We can get that property up to a respectable level in terms of drainage, materials, and a parking lot. We have the machinery, graders, and fill material to do it,” Mr Hurley said earlier this spring.

Once the public works crews get a lot of the “rough” work out of the way, then the town can bring in a finish contractor who can take the playing fields to completion.

“We should be able to get it to the point where they can then do the grass seed, turf, and clay infield,” said Mr Hurley, whose crews have done fields at Oak View Road and Hawley School in the past.

The highway department has the necessary equipment – such as graders and screeners – to create the type of fill needed for the Amaral property.

“We have the ability to change the grade of fill we put in there,” Mr Hurley said.

The Amaral property, a long, narrow field along Elm Drive and adjacent to Dickinson Park, was a key acquisition by the Parks & Recreation Commission. When purchased, it was hoped that the property would provide the fields that the town needed. A shortage of fields in town has become a major issue with residents as the town continues to grow.

The former Amaral property extends in a triangular shape in a northerly direction from Dickinson Park to the point where Elm Drive and Deep Brook Road intersect at the Village Cemetery. The lot lies just north of the Dickinson Park tennis courts.

The property was purchased from the Amaral family for $400,000 using Iroquois Land Preservation and Enhancement Program (LPEP) money.

Currently, there are 25 ball fields in Newtown that are available to the public. However, most of the fields are on school property, often causing scheduling problems. More than 1,200 children take part in Newtown’s soccer programs, which are played on local fields in the spring, summer, and fall. Fields have become overcrowded and over-used with practices and games overlapping.