When Is A Solution A Solution?

This morning an article ran in the Republican American about the Recreation Rule controversy and the Town Meeting vote scheduled for Thursday, July 11 at 7:00 pm at Antolini.

Barbara Coppinger, the circulator of the petition, is quoted in the article, “People have to get up and go to work the next day.  They should have hours (at Brodie Park South) because it is in a neighborhood surrounded by neighbors” (assuming that’s an editing error).  “So there are problems and I’m sure if everyone gets together there will be solutions.”

Last year there were a series of meetings where they came up with solutions.  Modifications were made to the practice schedule for Brodie Park South.    Practice now ends by 8:00 pm.   Football practice was moved further down the field away from neighbors.   The parking area was adjusted.  Football parents helped park cars and coordinated the pick up of children after practice so as not to bother the neighbors.  Weren’t these solutions acceptable?

First Selectman Dan Jerram proposed and began construction on a football practice field at Antolini to take the program out of their crosshairs.  The field won’t be ready until next year, but doesn’t that sound like a solution?

How many “neighbors” go to bed by 8:00 pm even when they have to work the next day?  What do they do when there are concerts at Brodie North (much closer to many more neighbors than is Brodie South) that last until even later than that?

Is she confusing football with the teen drinking and other activity that goes on when football isn’t there?    One of the maintenance men described what kind of trash they found during a town meeting after these folks complained about trash at Brodie South.  We know it wasn’t the trash left by boys and girls in a supervised sport activity.

The article also claims she says “she knows residents have complained about noise and such at Brown’s Corner on Steele Road.”  Baseball games do sometimes end after sunset in the summer, sometimes running into dusk.  The only complaints I’ve heard of came from Maria Moore.  Brown’s Corner has very few neighbors within 500 yards.

How frustrating it is when these folks continue to make it sound like kids playing sports in Town Parks until 8:00 pm is a horrible and unbearable wrong.

We need New Hartford residents to turn out and say that it’s ok for our children to use our Town Parks to practice sports.  We need them to understand that we like our children involved in healthy physical activity.  We need them to turn out to tell these folks that the rules we already have are sufficient.

Please join us at Antolini this Thursday, the 11th, at 7:00 pm to vote for the kids.