The Sun
Sunnyvale's Newspaper

Council denies lights for baseball fields

By Steve Enders

Families and coaches of the Sunnyvale Micro Rockets, the undefeated national champs of Pop Warner football, packed City Hall Tuesday night to receive honors from the mayor on a superb season.

After the team left and the council got down to business, however, the boys and their coaches might not have been as jubilant.

The council, after hearing proposals to add amenities to area parks, voted against installing lights, at least temporarily, at Fair Oaks Park. The lights would have been a boon for area teams, according to Sunnyvale Pop Warner chairman Dolf Placencia.

"Right now, we use three lit fields at three different parks," he said. "If lights are installed, we could free up the other two parks."

Coaches also said that lights would enable them to host tournaments with nighttime games.

The proposed lights would cost the little league $200,000 to install and would cost the city approximately $40,000 to maintain.

Although councilmembers said the city had the money to support the project, they weren't sure where the funds would come from; so they decided to wait until budget negotiations are complete to decide on the lights.

"Sunnyvale's not a poor city," said Councilwoman Julia Miller, who added that her son benefited from participating in Sunnyvale sports programs.

Councilman Fred Fowler said he was "uncomfortable" with spending $40,000 a year on lights without clearly knowing what the impact would be on the city's youth sports. Fowler said he wanted to know whether the lights would add participants to the city's youth sports teams.

Despite the council's decision, little leaguers left the meeting partially satisfied: The council did agree to install batting cages at Washington Park. Users of the new batting cages will probably be limited to organized teams, who will have to get entry keys from the parks department.

The two issues surfaced after the Parks and Recreation Department submitted a study to the council on playing-field improvements in Sunnyvale parks. Among other things, the study explored whether parks equally accommodated all sports.

Currently, Sunnyvale manages 340 acres of open space through its Neighborhood Parks and Open Space Program. Athletic fields take up a big portion, composing about 143 acres, or 42 percent, of that land.

Fields are designed and maintained to support as many different uses as possible. According to the study, the more athletic amenities are installed, the more difficult it becomes to maintain a multipurpose outlook.

For instance, requests for little league outfield fences have been denied many times because the fences would render fields unusable for soccer players.

The ultimate goal for the parks commission and the city is to achieve a balance so that everyone can have the same access to amenities at different parks.

To help keep the balance, groups requesting field improvements such as batting cages must make written proposals to the city, as well as submit signed approval from neighbors living near the said park.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, February 4, 1998.
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