Council postpones decision on location of Miracle League field

Jan. 12—TOLLAND — The Town Council on Tuesday postponed a decision on authorizing a proposed engineering study for building a Miracle League baseball field for local disabled youth at the Birch Grove Primary School following a lengthy debate on the possible location.

The vote to postpone the matter to the next council meeting was 5-2, with members Colleen Yudichak and Sami Khan voting against.

DEBATE OVER FIELD LOCATION

WHAT: The Tolland Town Council postponed a decision on an engineering study that would look at the feasibility of building a Miracle League baseball field for disabled children at the Birch Grove Elementary School.

WHY: Council members and members of other sports leagues in town were hesitant to displace kids who formerly used the space being considered as a soccer field.

This followed debate on whether the field should be built at the school, with both council members and residents worried that it would take up a space formerly used as a soccer field and displace those kids. The proposed site is where the school's temporary portable classrooms were located during construction of the new Birch Grove School. Plans originally called for it to revert back to a soccer field.

Tolland Soccer Club President and resident Dave Garritt said at Tuesday's council meeting that the Miracle League field would be a great addition to Tolland, but would severely limit the soccer program if it were built at the Birch Grove site.

"It must be additive to our community, not a replacement," he said.

However, one of the Miracle League leaders, Steve Leibowitz, said at the meeting that the idea that the adaptive field would displace soccer players is "not entirely correct." The soccer fields have not been used in years because of the new school's construction, and there would still be room for soccer fields at the site, as the Miracle League field would not take up the entire available space, he said.

"At this point, the only site we could consider is the Birch Grove site because of savings," Leibowitz said, adding that building it somewhere else could increase the cost to $800,000 for tree removal and ground leveling. Building it at the school would cost around $400,000 because the conditions are already ideal, he said. The Miracle League of Northern Connecticut intends to fund construction of the field, and had intended to fund the engineering study as well for an expected cost of between $2,500 and $12,000.

Council members expressed concern, however, at displacing soccer players and suggested looking at other locations for the Miracle League field.

"I'd love to have it in Tolland, there's no doubt about it ... I don't want to hurt other kids who use it at the same time," said Khan.

"Just saying 'we will only consider this,' that puts us in a very difficult bind," Councilman Lou Luba said, adding that if the Miracle League is considering only one location, the engineering study would instead be the "start of a project."

"I think as a council our question has always been, is that the best site for it?," Councilwoman Tammy Nuccio asked, adding that she does not think the town can make a commitment to having the field at the Birch Grove school right now.

The engineer working on the Miracle League project, Todd Penney, told the council that other sites in town such as Crandall Park would not work as well because there is not as much parking and it's not compliant with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. The Birch Grove site is already handicap-accessible, said Laurel Leibowitz, who along with her husband has helped lead the effort to build the field.

Council members still expressed interest in expanding the proposed engineering study's scope to other potential locations in town.

Councilwoman Katie Murray noted that this could also be a chance to do a study on all of the town's playing fields to expand their uses from what they currently are. Tolland Town Engineer Chuck Eaton, who was also present at the meeting, supported that idea.

"I think it would behoove the town to see if things can get switched around," said Eaton, who suggested a master plan study for the town's fields that could help see if other locations could be used for the Miracle League field.

Both Steve and Laurel Leibowitz expressed reluctance at funding the study if there was no commitment to building the Miracle League field at the Birch Grove site, however, and suggested that they should share the cost with other sports leagues in town if other fields were also part of the study.

"We would be willing to fund that study if it was exclusively for Birch Grove," said Laurel Leibowitz.

Ultimately, the council decided to postpone discussion on the matter because of the late hour, and to allow the Miracle League, Eaton, and the town manager's office to work on a revised agreement for the study.

Yudichak expressed frustration with postponing the discussion though, as she was concerned the Miracle League would look at locations in other towns to build the field.

Ben covers Coventry and Tolland for the Journal Inquirer.

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