Two Little League Field Decisions Scheduled Tuesday Night [Update]

Update, 12:45 p.m.:

Dave Pierpont, president of Fairfield American Little League, said Tuesday that public access and use of Gould Manor Park, one of the objections to Fairfield American's proposal raised by Tony Pontecorvo, president of the Gould Manor Neighborhood Association, wouldn't be impacted by the project.

"There will be no reduction in public access to the park at all," Pierpont said. "These are public fields. By no means are we taking ownership of the fields."

Pierpont said people who go to the fields to play pickup baseball or to toss a ball around would have the same opportunity to use the fields after the renovation as they do now and that Fairfield American wouldn't increase the number of Little League games played on the fields. "The use is going to remain the same. We max that park out as much as we can already," he said.

Reorienting the fields so the home plates are back to back, instead of facing each other, would create a large field that Pierpont described as "just short of the width of a football field and 440 feet long." He said that field essentially encompasses the outfields of the reoriented fields. The dotted lines on the graphic in the town's Zoning Department that seem to separate the two fields don't represent fences, Pierpont said. "Once you get past the infield dirt, there's no fencing," he said of the reoriented fields. The temporary home-run fencing for each of the fields is beyond the dotted lines; one of the home-run fences would be up for four months and the other would be up for seven months, Pierpont said.

Original story:

There's more than one decision on a controversial Little League project scheduled to be made Tuesday night.

The town's $350,000 plan to build a girls' Little League field and infrastructure for a park on Hoyden's Lane faces its final vote Tuesday night, but Fairfield American Little League's plan to change two existing boys' Little League fields in Gould Manor Park - also a source of controversy for neighborhood residents - faces a decision as well.

Tony Pontecorvo, president of the Gould Manor Neighborhood Association, wants Fairfield American's planned changes to Gould Manor Park to be voted on by the Town Plan and Zoning Commission. Fairfield American's plan has largely been overshadowed by the girls' Little League field on Hoyden's Lane, though the Gould Manor plan attracted a lot of opposition at a meeting of the town's Parks and Recreation Commission in October.

Pontecorvo contends in a letter to Assistant Town Planner James Wendt that Fairfield American's plan "will have a severe impact on the public's use of the park and are substantial enough" to warrant a public hearing and vote of the Town Plan and Zoning Commission.

"We support the continuing current use of this park for Little League baseball recreation, but are very concerned that the proposed alterations, enlargement and construction of the baseball facilities with its permanent divisions of the open field space in Gould Manor Park will substantially take away and restrict the free use of the park by the general public and the neighborhood," Pontecorvo's letter says.

Pontecorvo cites the following proposed changes to the park, though he adds in his letter that they are "what we have been able to learn" and may not be final:

* Demolition of the existing fields, backstops, fencing and restrooms;

* Building two new fields in the center of the park facing Holland Hill Road;

* Permanently dividing the center of the park with two L-shaped, 10-foot-high to 15-foot-high fences, totaling about 180 linear feet;

* Building new restroom facilities;

* Building two new dugout structures in concrete;

* Building new permanent fenced batting cages and bleachers;

* Installing five-foot solid plastic fencing screens in the outfield, totaling about 720 linear feet and to remain in place through the baseball season;

* Proposed installation of private advertising or league signage on fencing during the baseball season.

Dave Pierpont, president of Fairfield American Little League, wasn't available late Monday afternoon, but Wendt, in a letter to the commission, indicated the commission didn't need to approve changes proposed by Fairfield American and that some of Pontecorvo's cited changes weren't proposed to take place according to town Parks and Recreation Director Gerald Lombardo.

Those included demolition of restrooms and building new restrooms, installing concrete dugout structures and batting cages (though new backstops will be set up), and installing private advertising on the outfield fencing.

The main part of Fairfield American's plan is to change the orientation of the two fields so the outfield areas of the fields no longer overlap. That is accomplished by having the home plate areas "essentially back to back," Wendt's letter to the commission says.

The Parks and Recreation Commission had approved a "conceptual" plan for the changes last August, which Pontecorvo and other neighbors said they weren't aware of, and the neighbors came to the commission's meeting in October, asking that the August decision be rescinded, which the commission declined to do.

First Selectman Ken Flatto offered to meet with representatives from Fairfield American and the Gould Manor Neighborhood Association for an "in-house review," and if there weren't any changes, the commission had no reason to take further action since the concept had been approved, according to minutes of the Oct. 27 meeting. "You voted on a concept, and the concept stands," Flatto said at the meeting.

Neighbors at that meeting objected to a lack of communication about what Fairfield American intended to do in the park and said they'd been shut out of the process.

Wendt said in his letter that Flatto sought the town Zoning Department's input on the plan. "We indicated that since no new fields were proposed, no action was required by the TPZ since no new uses were being established," he said in the letter.

Wendt said Monday that it will be up to the Town Plan and Zoning Commission to determine if a public hearing and vote is required on Fairfield American's plan for Gould Manor Park.

The commission will make that decision - as well as vote on the girls' Little League field at 520 Hoyden's Lane - during a meeting that starts at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in McKinley School.