Thursday, March 24, 2011

County Makes Decision

The Department of Parks and Recreation has ruled the all facilities in the parks  must be kept open to all including youth batting cages and fields.


What will be the impact of this decision.  We guess that means that the new homeless shelters will be at Washington-Lee and Yorktown High School batting cages. Per direction Parks, locks securing the Greenbrier and Quincy batting cages will be immediately removed to permit full public access.

The impact of this decision will be dramatic. The youth softball program, Arlington Girls Softball Association will be forced to remove valuable equipment from Greenbrier and Quincy. The impact will be significant to this program. Yorktown and Washington-Lee High School will have to disrupt their spring softball programs to find shelter for their equipment.

You have to wonder does anyone ever want to discuss before issuing edicts!  These programs will recover, but no thanks to the bureaucracy.

The good news is that the Parks Department serves the Community. This is a policy decision that probably needs to be discussed further.  If the Community disagrees with this decision or conversely agrees with it, make your thoughts known.

7 comments:

  1. Does the WL softball team have the option of removing the batting cage, relocating it to school property? Or were county funds used to purchase the batting cage. I'm very surprised that the parks and recreation officials aren't more concerned about the safety of these students.

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  2. does anybody know whether this means that the yorktown softball field will no longer be locked? anyone can now use it?

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  3. I wonder if the cage can be moved to WL/APS property? Maybe, they will finish the field that was in the original plan of the new school? What role does the APS play in this?

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  4. I thought the shed by the tennis courts was put up to store the WLHS equipment. You working the team too hard to move it after practice?

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  5. If you don't like the fact that community fields funded by taxpayer dollars are open to the public, bring it up with the County Board. If the school wants exclusive use of the field then have APS pay for it. That's why the bugdet is divided like it is every year...schools should and does) have money to fund things JUST FOR THE SCHOOLS) and the County funds things for the community.

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  6. Thanks for the clarification of the differences between APS and the County Board and their revenue streams. I wonder if they know how to contact each other? Last time I checked WL and Quincy park are both part of the community that, oh by the way - I belong to too as a taxpayer.

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  7. From Webester:

    com·mu·ni·ty   /kəˈmyunɪti/ [kuh-myoo-ni-tee]

    –noun, plural -ties.

    a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.

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