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04/19/2017 09:00 AMWith spring weather comes the start of the baseball season, but as players get ready to take the field, the renovation project at the Town Campus baseball field is hurrying to make deadline and hit the financial mark. After numerous deliberations and budget changes, town officials are working to finish the project on budget as costs start to add up.
Built in 1998 and used by a variety of baseball teams, the Town Campus baseball field has seen a fair number of seasons. After safety concerns were raised last year, the field was slated for reconstruction in this year’s budget. However, construction on the field was paused on Dec. 21 after members of the Board of Finance (BOF) and members of the baseball community raised concerns over a new, unauthorized direction chosen by First Selectman Tom Banisch for the project.
The project to fix the field was originally approved in last year’s budget under the Capital Improvement Program (CIP) for a total of $150,000. The money was targeted for improvements designed to alleviate safety concerns, but Banisch determined that the field posed no safety issues and directed money toward finishing off the complex—purchasing new fencing, bleachers, excavating behind home plate, and purchasing a new backstop.
When members of Madison Baseball said safety issues were not being addressed in the field plan, the BOF decided to hold funding on the project and ask Banisch to have a formal safety assessment done. At a BOF meeting on Jan. 18, Banisch shared with the board the results of the safety inspection, performed by the town’s insurance carrier, CIRMA.
With a clean inspection bill in hand, the project moved forward with the hope of completing construction by April 1. However, as of the Board of Selectmen (BOS) meeting on April 10, the field was still under construction and costs were quickly approaching the $150K project cap.
As of April 10, approximately $146,000 was spent on the project according to Town Engineer Mike Ott. While Banisch said the project would be completed on budget—even if that meant a couple of items had to be eliminated—the conversation quickly turned to how the project expenses spun out of control.
According to Ott, the confusion is due to how to the project came together. With so many voices in the mix—namely the town and the baseball community—the project came together in a fairly backwards manor.
“Typically when we develop a project here, we plan the project, design the project, have meetings with the stakeholders, the engineering department comes up with an opinion of cost, it is decided if we can fund that, and then we go out to bid,” he said. “This is a different animal. This is the town acting as the construction manager and pulling all of these pieces together. When it was decided we were going to build dugouts, for instance, I designed the foundation slabs and the dugouts the best I could, went out and got pricing, and it was put into this ongoing, evolving financial summary. The way this project has developed is atypical.”
The scope of the project went through multiple iterations. At one point the project funds were dropped from $150,000 to $30,000 and then brought back up to $150,000 in the CIP. The objectives of the reconstruction or renovation of the field also shifted after safety concerns were discussed. With the project constantly in flux, communication seems to have been a problem, according to Selectman Scott Murphy.
“I think if we had one quarterback program managing the project the entire time, the project would be executed on time and on budget,” he said. “My observation is we are not always on the same page and communication sometimes gets a little mucky.”
Regardless of how the project arrived at its current situation, the field needs to be ready for play on Saturday, April 22. Banisch said the field will be ready, but the town is not going to build certain elements that the baseball community wanted, like dugouts.
“This thing has gotten out of control, so what we need to do is reel it in from the back end now,” Banisch said. The town “decided that one thing that we could take out is the dugouts because [the baseball community] had offered to build the dugouts a long time ago and unfortunately their memory is not as long as mine, but they had offered to build dugouts, so I said do it. We can’t afford the dugouts and that will keep us under budget.”
At the BOS meeting, Peter Chorney from Madison Little League said the baseball community will do what it can to help complete the project, but pointed out that it takes a while to fundraise for items such as dugouts.
“It is frustrating that we are now getting to the end of this and there are a few items that are making the budget challenging,” he said. We are really close to that $150,000 number and if we looked at this really closely we could get this done under budget. I know the baseball community is willing to help out and do what we can but the challenge is last minute is it just takes time to fundraise. It is going to be a good year in donations to do that.”
Even without the formal dugouts, a fence is in place in front of the dugout area and Ott said he is prioritizing including the items that make the field safe for play.
“I think we look at player safety first and playability second and everything else after that,” he said. “From a safety perspective, we have to have a backstop. From a player safety standpoint, the team has to be protected while the game is going on, so there has to be some form of dugout.”
Selectman Bruce Wilson said at the BOS meeting that after the project is finished, he wants to see the board go back and do a retrospective analysis of the project to determine where it went wrong. For now, Banisch said the field will be completed to such a point that it is ready for play on April 22.
“We are at a point where the field will get done,” he said. “It is going to be missing a few things like dugouts because we just don’t have the money, but the fact of the matter is we are going to do whatever we need to do to be under budget.”