Public Comment

I walked past the brand new Derby Street baseball field yesterday and immediately realized that it was completely fenced off and vacant. And the basketball court next to it was fenced off and vacant too.  

I don't know exactly how much Tim Moellering Field cost exactly to build and couldn't find its price-tag listed on Google either, but let's assume that the field had cost, let's say, three million dollars. And then let's say that the number of ball players who will use it, and who also actually have a key to unlock the gates to the field, is around 200 users. 200 goes into three million how many times? Would that average $15,000 per user as the cost of this field? 

I don't mind the $15,000 per user so much. Good for them. But I do mind the fact that none of the local residents get access to it too. The only thing that local residents such as myself seem to get out of this deal is to contribute our already-scarce on-street parking spaces to the success of this venture. As for everything else, all we appear to be allowed to do is to gaze longingly through the yards and yards of locked-up inaccessible chain-link fences -- at all that beautiful green grass that we ourselves will never be allowed to set foot on. 

Oh, and we also get to pay for the water bills and maintenance crews needed to keep this field so clean and green. I almost forgot about that.