Darden Towe Park is still dark and will remain so until county and city officials sit down to discuss the future of the softball fields at McIntire Park.
At the October 7 meeting of the Board of Supervisors, county officials argued that their decision about lighting Darden Towe Park was contingent upon the finalized plans for the YMCA at McIntire Park.
“I am not prepared to make this decision tonight,” said Supervisor Dennis Rooker.
In the preliminary staff report, Albemarle County Parks and Recreation Director Pat Mullaney told supervisors that lighting the three softball fields at Darden Towe Park was the only option to accommodate the growing interest in the sport, because of the lack of additional fields available. He urged supervisors to consider lighting at the park as a separate issue from what happens with the YMCA.
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For now, Darden Towe’s softball field will stay in the dark. |
In May, the City of Charlottesville adopted a new master plan for McIntire Park. According to the county staff report, the planned site of the YMCA building would encroach on two of three softball fields. The third field could be replaced by a rectangular athletic field that would serve both city and county residents.
“I don’t know if a meeting between the city and county will change the scenario for McIntire and Darden Towe,” Mullaney says by e-mail. “But it will assure that the city knows where the county stands and vice versa when that decision is made.”
Board Chair Ken Boyd, who presided over and moderated a community discussion last month about the lighting issue, said that plans made for McIntire Park were done solely by the city without much communication between the two agencies.
“This decision by the city is going to cost us a lot of money,” said Boyd.
“The Board of Supervisors rightly determined that you cannot separate lights at Darden Towe and the destruction of McIntire Park,” says Clara Belle Wheeler, an outspoken critic of the plan. “The two are linked. You cannot consider one and not the other and I think that was their discussion.”
Mike Svetz, director of the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation, said that the YMCA controversy only accelerated the issue of lighting at Darden Towe Park in view of the growing demand for more available fields.
The city looked at different locations for the YMCA, he said, but narrowed down its options to McIntire Park because, among other things, it addressed parking needs and it was “as close as possible to Charlottesville High School,” he said. Svetz said that in view of the upcoming design review process, the city is open to discuss and revisit the master plan.
Bob Fenwick, who has created the website www.savemcintire.com, is happy about the Board’s non-action. “We will take any victory to slow down this heavily shortsighted decision by the city,” he says. What Fenwick and others oppose is the destruction of a free and open park by building a facility that would be better served somewhere else. “McIntire Park is Charlottesville’s Central Park,” said Fenwick.
But Kurt Krueger, chairman of the Piedmont YMCA’s board of directors, told supervisors that the notion that the YMCA building is the sole cause for the elimination of the softball fields is incorrect. One of the proposed designs has the Y built across from the existing parking, he said in an interview, leaving the softball fields untouched.
Regardless of what is decided between the city and county about McIntire Park, Mullaney says it is imperative to consider the current financial situation. “I do not believe funding would have been available any sooner had we gotten formal approval to light the Towe fields” at the meeting, he said.
The total cost of lighting Darden Towe ranges between $550,000 and $750,000. Because of the portion of users, the county would pay 70 percent, and the city 30 percent.
The 2007 Darden Towe Park agreement requires that both city and county agree on the decision to light any competitive sport at the park. City Council will have a public hearing on the issue in November.
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