The only two softball fields in Stansbury Park are being converted into a third football field, prompting concern from supporters of youth softball in the community.
The Stansbury Park Service Agency board will vote on the ratification of a contract to lay sod over the dirt infields on the softball field at its Wednesday night meeting at 7 p.m. at the Stansbury Park Clubhouse.
Stansbury Park Service Agency Manager Randall Jones said there are plans to install two new softball fields in Parkview Park next spring. Troy Angeli said he’s been in charge of scheduling the Village Park fields for youth softball the past seven years and no one involved with youth softball was consulted on the conversion.
Angeli said he was one of several softball representatives that gave their email addresses and phone numbers to the service agency board for quarterly youth sport meetings. When no one made contact with the softball representatives, Angeli said he assumed there would be no changes to the status quo of the sports fields.
Service agency chairman Neil Smart said the service agency board discussed the conversion of the Village Park at several of its regularly scheduled meetings in the past year, but apologized for any breakdown in communication.
“We’re not going to exclude any one sport,” he said.
Both Angeli and Hannah Philpot said a softball representative reached out to the service agency last October and were told changes to the fields were only a rumor.
Stansbury Park Service Agency Manager Randall Jones said the changes to the community’s sports fields are the result of rapid population growth outpacing park development.
“As Stansbury grows, the problem is getting worse and worse,” he said. “When those softball fields (at Village Park) were built, that was the only option we had for them.”
Jones said the Village Park softball fields can’t be used for games because the outfields overlap in the current configuration. Two new fields in Parkview Park wouldn’t have the same overlap issues and could be used to hold simultaneous games once dirt infields are installed, he said.
Philpot said the Parkview Park fields are secondary options that have had poor grass and drainage issues in the past.
“The fields they want to give us are really soggy fields,” she said.
Jones said the condition of Parkview Park has improved since it was installed and the grass has matured enough for softball play.
“We feel that it’s ready that we can cut out a couple infields and put the ball diamonds in, put some backstops in,” he said.
The service agency also decided to move ahead with the new football field to better consolidate each youth sport to a specific field, Jones said. Youth baseball uses Sager’s Park, football would have Village Park and youth softball would have Parkview Park dedicated to its use, he said.
By assigning each sport its own fields, the organizations have taken ownership of its space, Jones said. Baseball covers much of the maintenance for its fields and youth soccer purchased its own goals, which reduces the burden on the service agency, he said.
“They put the money into the fields for their own sport,” Jones said. “In football, we felt if we gave them that complex to use, we could lean on them to do the same thing.”
Youth football also can’t host tournaments in Stansbury Park without having three adjacent fields and the high school is reluctant to let youth football use their fields, Jones said.
“The need of football precipitated the timing,” he said. “They’re just at a point where they can’t do their little league operations effectively without three fields.”
Jones also said soccer and football have seen the most growth in recent years and the softball teams host games at Deseret Peak Complex, where there are better fields that can be lit for night games. The service agency won’t install lights on their fields because of the cost and disruption to the observatory, he said.
Angeli contested that softball gets a lot of use out of the fields because it has a longer season than football. Stansbury High School’s junior varsity softball team had also considered using the Village Park fields in the upcoming year, he said.
While the Village Park fields are being converted, there would be no fields for female athletics besides soccer, Angeli said. A representative for Stansbury Park softball has reached out to the American Civil Liberties Union about the situation, he said.
With Stansbury High School the three-time defending state champions in softball, Angeli said the move to convert softball fields doesn’t make much sense.
“It seems kind of silly to me,” he said.