By GLEN WERLING
A new drive into Ossian’s Archbold-Wilson Memorial Park will be put on hold — for now.
Monday night Ossian Town Manager Luann Martin presented the board members of the Ossian-Jefferson Township Park Board with a proposal from town engineer, Jim Breckler of Engineering Resources, to design a main entrance from LaFever Street into the park.
Past park boards had considered a LaFever Street entrance as the main entrance to the park and Martin had at one time even looked into having the town purchase a house for sale next to the current LaFever Street entrance to the Big Diamond baseball diamond as a means of being able to facilitate an entrance. That fell through, however, when the house sold for more than the town could afford.
Ossian Revitalization has urged the park board and Martin to reconsider the LaFever Street entrance and agreed to pay for half of the $15,100 engineering study for the design of a drive into and through the north side of the park that would connect LaFever Street and Braeburn Street. Braeburn is currently is the main entrance to the park.
The problem with having Braeburn as the main entrance is that it requires visitors to the park to take a circuitous route of town streets through residential neighborhoods. A LaFever Street entrance would travel directly into the park on LaFever Street from Ind. 1 (Jefferson Street) the main thoroughfare through town. The entrance would actually be visible from Jefferson as it would be just two blocks east of Jefferson — and LaFever is a fairly wide thoroughfare — as opposed to much narrower Braeburn.
There was only problem with the plan that park board member Jared Kurtz saw — the drive would be within 10 feet of the back of the north dugout of the Big Diamond.
Also, people use a stone parking lot that parallels the north fence of the Big Diamond. If a drive was built, people would have to back out onto the driveway. Larger vehicles might actually encroach the drive.
Martin suggested several ways to mitigate the problem including fencing in the dugout. She also observed that events at the park rarely coincide with events at the diamonds. She added that the main entrance would be just that — an entrance to the park — not a town street.
Also the goal, Martin explained, was to eventually reorientate the ball diamonds so that the Big Diamond and the Minor League diamond are back to back, allowing them to share a common concession stand instead of having to have two concession stands.
If they are moved around the way that past park boards have considered, it would be the rightfield/centerfield fence that would abut the new drive into Archbold-Wilson and that would obviously not be that big of a deal (unless a power hitter put a home run through a park visitor’s windshield).
However, reconfiguring the town’s ball diamonds is a huge expense that the town simply does not have cash for now, Martin pointed out.
The issue she tried to get the board to refocus on is building a more visible and easier to access main entrance to Archbold-Wilson Memorial Park.
But the board wasn’t interested in that issue if it meant splitting the Big Diamond parking lot and putting a potentially busy drive in a location where there was already considerable pedestrian traffic for The Big Diamond.
So the proposal died without further discussion.
In other business, board members Kurtz, Meagan Luce, Tim Rohr and Gary Guenin:
• Approved purchasing a new swing set for Melching Park from Miracle Recreation Equipment of Monnet, Mo., for $3,665. The quote was the lesser of two received by Martin. The other was from GameTime of Holland, Mich., for $4,935.82. The cash will come out of the park department’s capital improvement fund. The board members asked Martin to see how much it would cost to add a tot swing to the set. Miracle’s quote included a tot swing, but also two fewer swings for larger children.
• Learned that vandals have so badly damaged the basketball goal pole at Melching Park that it will have to be replaced. Martin suggested that any new pole be filled with concrete.
The members wrapped Monday’s meeting with an update from Kurtz on the progress being made for forming a Northern Wells youth baseball league.
The park board appointed a three-member committee to study the needs of youth baseball in town and come up with a tangible plan to create a municipal-sponsored league.
“Our first meetings have been spitballing and trying to come up with a gameplan. Next we plan to move on, figure out if we like the idea, then how are we going to do it,” Kurtz said of the committee.
What they’re “spitballing” is creating a league that will include Uniondale. Instead of being controlled by Ossian, the league would still be a public league but both Uniondale and Ossian would partner with each other for a Northern Wells league to use the diamonds of both towns more efficiently. That league would pay for the use of the diamonds in both towns.
“My goal is to make it affordable for everyone as much as possible. I want to try and get back to a community feel (for baseball) and away from all of this travel garbage,” Kurtz said.
The board members asked Kurtz to keep them updated.
Monday’s meeting was actually the September meeting of the park board because the first Monday in September — when the board would have normally met — is Labor Day.
The next regular meeting of the board will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 3, at the Collier’s Comfort building.
glenw@news-banner.com