PARK REALIGHNMENT
“Local citizens are getting the short end of the stick again” says Becky Myers, 137 Park Place west.
Concerned residents voiced their opinion about the realignment of Memorial park, Shippensburg during Shippensburg Borough’s February 15, 2011 meeting.
The voice that rang out amongst the others that night was that of Todd Martin, President of the Shippensburg Area Athletic Association and Assistant coach of Shippensburg Stars. This organization is made up of 10 baseball teams with players ranging in age from 16 – 50. During their normal season they play 30 games and another 17 during playoffs.
Martin feels that the Borough is not doing enough to keep the Stars baseball league informed of decisions concerning what fields they will be playing on in the 2011 season.
“As an organization we are just tired of having hearsay and having to find out by rumors… I mean last year we had to find out about the price change by rumors” says Martin.
It was only two weeks prior to this meeting, that the Stars baseball league was informed that the Borough planned to move all baseball activities from Memorial park to the Shippensburg High School field.
During the course of the meeting it was settled that the Shippensburg High School field will be the new home of the Shippensburg Stars baseball league and it will cost $75 for a 3 hour game.
Although the Shippensburg Star baseball team appeared to be satisfied, there was still much discussion about Memorial park and how to “move it forward”.
One issue that was raised at this meeting was that of the general layout of Memorial park. A topic of much discussion was what to do with the temporary fencing that section off various areas of the park.
Jon Baker, Borough council member, expressed the desire to rearrange the chain link fences near the front entrance of the park in order to improve the general aesthetic of the park and make it look more inviting to visitors.
On the argument of making the park appealing to visitor, the council has decided to turn the football field into a multi-purpose field. This decision will make the field open to a wide range of sports and also allow for night games. Other changes include pushing back bleachers and fences by several feet to create a more spacious feeling.
However, not everyone on the council thought that this was a good idea, as was shown by the councils 5–1 vote about realigning the park.
Steve Brenize, a Shippensburg Borough member, asked the council if the expense of revamping the park is worth the cost compared to the possible revenue from other events.
Charles Suders, the Shippensburg Area school boards vice president, voiced his opinion that “we have to move forward on this, we have been in these discussions for three years now and progress needs to move forward, I think this is the first step that we need to do and I’m looking forward to it”
In other news:
- King Street will be closed from on Saturday, August 27, 2011 for the annual Corn Festival. Visit http://www.cornfestival.net to get the full details of closures and detour routes.
- The Episcopal Home was approved to close down Burd Street from Washington Street to Prince Street for a block party on Saturday, May 21, 2011, from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
- No trash pickup on Monday, February 21, 2011, it will be picked up on Tuesday. Tuesday’s garbage will be picked up on Wednesday.
- Street sweeping will take place throughout the borough on Thursday and Friday, February 24th and 25th.
Leslie Arakelian 