Town officials last week approved an approximately $13,000 contract with a Middlesex, N.J.-based company to repair damage to one of New Canaan’s little league baseball fields at Mead Park.
The Aug. 18 storm that brought so much flooding throughout town also damaged the netting and pole down the third-base line at Mellick Field, according to Superintendent of Parks Todd Deklyn.
“It’s a double tiered net and the lower tier got ripped by the tree that fell on it and when it fell it took down the pole and bent it,” he told members of the Board of Selectmen at their Sept. 17 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 $12,991 contract with JGB Sports.
“The netting system is used to protect balls from going over into the playground area on the left-field side,” Deklyn said.
The selectmen asked whether it was the same major rainstorm from last month (yes) and whether an entire netting system was destroyed (yes).
“[It’s] the Aug. 18 storm, when a tree fell and it took out the netting and hit the poles,” Deklyn said.
He added: “We don’t want to have to close the field down.”
Carlson noted that New Canaan Emergency Management Director Russ Kimes is taking the cost of the replacement equipment and adding the figures to “his calculations” for town-damaged property during the storm.