Council to look hard at softball

Deirdre Newman

City leaders’ efforts to expand the softball fields at TeWinkle

Memorial Park are proving as complicated as a suicide squeeze.

The council will rehear the issue tonight, having decided at an

earlier meeting to expand the three softball fields and in the

process remove 42 mature trees.

Councilman Chris Steel, on behalf of the Mesa del Mar Homeowners’

Assn., appealed that decision. Last month, the Parks and Recreation

Commission came up with a new plan that takes out 34 trees.

But many residents of the Mesa del Mar neighborhood, which is

directly to the north of the park, are not satisfied with a plan that

saves only eight trees.

“We’re not very fond of it,” said Jeff Wilcox, the association’s

president, who noted he was speaking for himself and not the group.

“I want them to go to the plan where they build the larger fences

[without removing any trees].”

The council is considering the softball fields’ expansion in the

larger context of the TeWinkle Park Athletic Complex Upgrade.

In April, the council expressed concern about having to make some

of the outfields smaller. That design called for 10-foot high

outfield fences positioned about 250 feet from home plate.

In July, the council expanded those dimensions so the northeast

softball field would bulge to about 320 feet at center field and the

northwest outfield fence would move out to about 300 feet near center

field. In addition to taking out the 42 trees, this plan would

require the removal of an existing picnic shelter and concrete

walkways.

After Steel’s appeal, the council granted a rehearing in August,

requesting a community meeting be held at the site.

This was done by the Parks and Recreation Commission in early

September. Four members of the commission attended, but the number of

residents there has been in dispute. Recreation staff has put it at

about 40 or 50, while Wilcox said there were about 80 people there.

Wilcox said he didn’t feel the city officials paid them much

attention.

“I think 79 of the 80 voiced concerns about expansion of the

fields and none of that was taken into consideration by staff or the

Parks and Recreation Commission,” Wilcox said.

The commission ultimately approved a plan that combined the

recreation staff’s attempt to reduce the amount of trees eliminated

with the council’s previous action. That proposal called for removing

34 trees.

To compensate for the trees that would be pulled, the commission

required that for every tree removed, a 3-1 replacement standard be

used and that the new trees be planted as soon as possible, even

before the work on the upgrade project begins.

The TeWinkle Park Athletic Complex is intended to serve men’s,

women’s and coed play. Recreation staff found that, according to rule

books for these groups, they are best served by outfield fence lines

that are up to 315 feet from home plate for men, 275 feet for women

and 300 feet for coed. Minimum fence dimensions for these three

groups are 275 feet, 265 feet and 275 feet, respectively.

There is about $2 million available for the athletic complex

improvements. But this funding is only enough to build the facility

with the 250-foot outfield fences. If they are expanded to the Parks

and Recreation Commission’s measurements, extra funds of about

$400,000 would have to be allocated to the project.

Mayor Gary Monahan said he doesn’t feel the entire upgrade project

is worth it if the outfields stay at 250 feet.

“We have the worst [softball] program in the county,” Monahan

said. “This improvement is no improvement. For folks to actually

believe that 250 [feet] is actually satisfactory is ignoring

softball. Why spend $2 million on not even an unsatisfactory project,

but something that’s kind of pathetic?”

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers Costa Mesa and may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at [email protected].