Can't wait for next season

To play ball in the spring means reseeding town fields now Warwick — While the town is looking to formalize a plan for its parks and recreation program with its visioning open house next week, that doesn’t mean they sit back and wait for it to happen. Anyone who has been out at the Union Corners Road soccer fields can see the town has been busy at work to prepare the fields for next spring. It wasn’t a good fall. The fields were so dry in August, players weren’t even allowed to play on them. Between the drought and a lack of water in the park’s well, the grass was brown and crisp. Then, the rains came. And they didn’t let up. Soon, the fields, which had been like dustbowls just weeks before were now mud slides. Needless to say, the fields are in tough shape. Even without the visioning session, the Town Board knew that additional fields have been needed at the Town Park and began to clear an area behind the snack stand last year in order to add fields. With the trees and brush cleared, town workers did some exploratory digging to see if the location was appropriate for building new fields, according to Supervisor Michael Sweeton. They are, so the town went to bid. One part of the building process—refining soils during excavating - has been approved. This gave workers additional top soil to work with, which came in handy, considering what needed to be done with the existing fields. Today, the existing fields are all turned over and are being reseeded. The board had a dilemma with the cleared area, though. If the town board members waited for the study findings, the fields would not be ready next year. So they decided to proceed anyway, knowing the fields were already needed. “If we don’t start the project this winter, we won’t get them for spring,” Sweeton said. And that’s only if everything goes well. There will be two new fields behind the snack stand. They will be multi-purpose fields for soccer, lacrosse and perhaps football. And the existing fields should be in tip-top shape by spring as well. The town also is looking for more water out there so that the fields are not as affected by drought again. “(Town Board member) Leonard DeBuck and the parks people are busy working at the fields,” said Sweeton. “They’ve moved lots of top soil and reseeded.” As for the new fields, he hopes they’ll be done by spring. “At a minimum, they should be ready for fall. But we’re hoping for spring.”