Town officials last week approved a pair of contracts for sports facility fencing at Mead Park and Saxe Middle School.
The Board of Selectmen during its regular meeting June 3 approved about $82,000 in contracts for fencing at the Mead Park pickleball courts and large baseball field, as well as a replacement fence at the Saxe baseball field near the YMCA and South Avenue.
A major part of the projects is upgrading the fence gauge from nine millimeter to six millimeter, according to Superintendent of Parks Ryan Restivo.
“This change provides a thicker, more durable coated material that will enhance longevity and durability of the new fencing installations,” Restivo told the selectmen during their regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference.
First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 in favor of the contracts with New Canaan-based Gannon Rustic Fence ($14,680) and P&C Fence of Bridgeport ($67,390).
The fencing at the Mead pickleball courts is failing, Restivo said, and two baseball fences—the perimeter at Mead Park’s large field and the backstop and dugout at Saxe—both need replacement. A backstop located near the Mead Park Playground will be removed because it’s no longer used, he said. It will be replaced with an 8-foot fence to protect the children’s play area, he said.
The selectmen asked how old the fences are (at least 30 years in some cases), what kind of shape the backstop at the Mead Park baseball field is in (it’s almost new), the timing of the project (before the end of the summer and, in some cases, end of September), what budget the funds are in (unused budgeted money from past years) and whether the height of a pickleball fence is the same as a tennis court (pretty much).
Carlson asked about the process by which the Parks Department obtained responses to the town’s RFPs on the projects, saying she has heard from contractors who had no idea the town was awarding contracts like this.
Restivo said he personally reached out to four companies. Carlson and the selectmen said that in the future, the RFPs should go in one central and easily located area on the municipal website.
“I think it’s important, because we’re a public entity and everything needs to be public,” Carlson said.
It’s hard to understand why the town is willing to spend money on new fencing at Mead when the real need is a pedestrian pathway. Many cars do not follow the 15 mph limit. When walking past the courts there are usually many cars parked leaving very narrow space between people and the cars. This is also the case by both fields, but the ones closer to the entrance and exit are more dangerous as many cars don’t slow down. It would seem the issue can be addressed by making walking paths in the grass areas along the road, along with better signage and repercussions, but we’ve been told there’s no money or need to do that.
Madalene,
Kindly note that there will be a Parks and Recreation Meeting on Wednesday, June 11th starting at 7pm. The meeting is open to the public and is held at Lapham Center in Waveny Park and via zoom.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89270270350?pwd=q7B6bJSOFCCZNPSEPy8Cubu8UJZ5oa.1
The agenda includes discussion of the courts in Mead Park. The public is allowed to speak for 2 to 3 minutes, so please come or zoom in to share your observation to the Commissioners and Recreation staff.
Thank you for the information.
Speaking of ways to make the parks better, maybe we take another pass at the Parks & Rec website? In a world of “buy now” buttons in basically every Instagram post, it shouldn’t be harder than finding Waldo to purchase a Family 4th Fireworks pass. It definitely shouldn’t be so hard to navigate that you have to email their help line to figure out how to reserve court time at Mead Park, either. First world problems, I know, but honestly how can our town websites be more confusing that the DMV’s?