WESTFIELD–Residents seemed to come together in support of lights for two ball fields in the city yesterday.
The Westfield Parks and Recreation Department held a public hearing to discuss a proposal of two sets of lights, one set at the Paper Mill school ball field and another at the Sadie Knox ball field. Those who attended generally appeared to support the lights projects, but there were some concerns about noise, light pollution and frequency and time of use of lights.
“Westfield has a long and proud history in baseball and softball,” Ken Diegel, president of Westfield Little League, said at the meeting. “With ever-increasing levels of competition, Westfield Little League is asking to install lights at Paper Mill and Sadie Knox playgrounds.”
Diegel cited other nearby towns, including Agawam and West Springfield, who have lighted ball fields for their child-athletes. He said that this gives those players an advantage, however small, over the Westfield child-athletes who currently have no lighted fields to play or practice on.
“We aren’t going to have nights just to have them, this is for the kids,” Mike Kazinski, president of Westfield Little League softball, said.
Kazinski also schedules the softball games for Westfield.
“This gives more kids opportunities with good kids and great coaches,” he said.
In addition to Diegel and Kazinski, three young girls who all played softball, also spoke to the board and the audience on hard. They pleaded to them, saying that the lights would provide them with more opportunities to play and even prevent injury when attempting to catch a line drive in the dark.
However, a couple residents did raise concerns, including ward 1 councilor Maryann Babinski. The concerns were related to the noise level that would occur on the ball fields, the time and days of operation, lighting for parking lots and maintenance of the lights.
Diegel said that the leagues will make sure not to schedule starts of games past 8 p.m., and that they would turn off all speakers at 8:30 p.m. Regarding the days, Diegel said that the games requiring light would be held almost exclusively on Friday and Saturday nights, and that the fields would have their use be mostly from April to October each year.
As for lighting for the parking lots, Diegel said that they will approach Westfield Gas and Electric–who is installing the lights–about looking into additional lighting.
Finally, maintenance of the lights will be done by Mesco, the company providing the materials and plan. They will be guaranteed for 20 years and will have new lamps put in after 5,000 hours of usage.
The next step will be for the Parks and Recreation Board to decide on the installation, which will happen at their next meeting. The date and time has not yet been posted.
