Letter to the Editor: Will kids in New Castle lose out again?
June 13, 2008
An Open Letter to the New Castle Town Board
As many of you may know, the New Castle Town Board has been presented with an exciting proposal that could provide a tremendous benefit to the various youth athletic programs in our town. A local group has offered to construct a full-size state of the art synthetic turf field on the soccer field located at Gedney Park.
In return for building the field the town would permit the group to construct a bubble to be used during the winter months. Various New Castle athletic programs would be entitled to rent time in the bubble at discounted rates. The timing of this proposal is very beneficial since the town has already approved a badly needed $400,000 renovation of the Upper Gedney Park soccer field.
This is not a unique idea. A similar facility was built several years ago right down the road in Armonk, also in a local park. On any given day during the winter months you can find various teams made up of New Castle residents playing soccer, flag football or lacrosse in the Armonk Dome. There is no reason why we can’t have the same type of facility right in our own backyard.
There is a critical shortage of athletic fields in our town
As we have heard from each member of the New Castle Town Board earlier this year in connection with the approval of a single soccer field at the Amsterdam property (instead of two fields as was recommended by the recreation commission), there is a critical shortage of athletic fields in our town. The shortage is so severe that the Chappaqua Youth Soccer Club needs to rent fields at SUNY Purchase in order to have enough fields on which to play their home games. Also, the required overuse of the existing fields has lead to the destruction of almost all the athletic fields in our town. If you take a look at the fields at Seven Bridges, Westorchard and Upper Gedney Park, they have all been damaged by overuse and are barely playable
As we all know, it took ten years to get the approval to build one soccer field on the Amsterdam property. New Castle has no current plans to build any additional athletic fields. This proposal is a unique opportunity to help address an acknowledged critical problem in our town, the lack of quality playing fields. A simple solution that does not cost the taxpayers a nickel (in fact saves money that would otherwise be used to fix the soccer field at Gedney Park) is within our grasp.
I hope that the New Castle Board will take the opportunity to put the needs of the children in our town first and work with this group in making this badly needed project a reality and not cave to the pressure that, in typical New Castle fashion, will be exerted by people who live near Gedney Park and do not want any additional use of one of our town parks. Keep in mind, parks are built to be used. The Armonk dome is a great success for both the community and the kids that use it. If we put the needs of our youth first, there is no reason why this can’t happen in our town.
Town board should embrace this simple solution
I can hear clearly the words uttered by one of the board members at the town board meeting where the board, to the dismay of the recreation commission and anyone who had a child that plays sports in this town, approved the construction of only one athletic field on the Amsterdam Property, when he said, “Challenge the town board to find solutions.” There is a very simple solution right in front of you that will be the first step in addressing a major problem in our town. I sincerely hope that the town board will accept the recommendation of the recreation department this time, which strongly is in favor of this proposal, and work hard to make this idea a reality.
Over the years it has been one disappointment after another when it comes to athletic fields in our town. The problem continues to worsen as the participation in the various town sports programs (especially lacrosse and travel baseball) grows at unprecedented rates. Hopefully, the kids of our town will be pleasantly surprised when they have the chance to play soccer and lacrosse on a state of the art synthetic turf field and have the chance to play athletics indoors during the winter months without having to travel to other communities.
If the town board should determine not to accept this proposal, I recommend that the town itself build a synthetic turf field at Upper Gedney Park. The field could be paid for by the town or could be funded in whole or in part through private contributions.
Respectfully,
Jeff Scheine
President, Chappaqua Youth Soccer Club
The Chappaqua Youth Soccer Club has 300 active players.
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