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Let's Get Them Playing

Killingworth will hold a town meeting next Wednesday night [Sept. 24] to vote on whether to put sod down on the new ballfields at Sheldon Park, which will add $38,000 to the $750,000 budget for the park renovations.

The renovations are coming along beautifully. Soon the tennis courts and the basketball court will be ready for use, and the horseshoe pit and playground will be open again.

But if we proceed with the original plan to seed the baseball fields, they won't be ready for play until spring 2016. Meanwhile, with the other facilities at the park open, it will be difficult to keep people off the newly sown grass.

Putting in sod instead will allow the 240 children involved in the Killingworth Youth League (KYL) to play on the fields starting next spring. Right now, play and practice time are severely limited; teams are doubling and tripling up for practice, and the existing fields are suffering from overuse. We particularly need a field for girls' softball; the girls have been playing on non-regulation fields.

Thanks to frugal management and generous contributions from KYL (which is donating the future concession stand, dugouts, and scoreboards, among other things), the Venuti family, and the U.S. Tennis Association, the Sheldon project is coming in under budget. After all this is taken into account, the net cost to the town will be about $16,500-and the Board of Finance has recommended taking this money from capital reserves that are already in place.

A year is a long time in the life of a kid. Let's get them playing at the great, new Sheldon Park as soon as possible.

I encourage your readers to come to the Town Meeting at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 24 at Killingworth Elementary School and vote to sod the fields.

Dan ColoniaKillingworth

Dan Colonia chairs the Killingworth Park & Recreation Commission.