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Demand outraces sporting facilities

The county isn't building enough playing fields to keep up with its rapidly growing population.

By WILL VAN SANT
Published February 12, 2005

BROOKSVILLE - For the first time, the Parks and Recreation Department has asked area athletic leagues to watch their enrollment numbers because of a playing field crunch.

In a letter sent to the leagues dated Feb. 9, department director Pat Fagan pleaded with them to recognize that rapid growth has led to more families in Hernando who want to involve themselves and their children in athletics.

"As all of you are aware," the letter reads, "the cost is tremendous to build new fields, but even more so is the added cost of staff and equipment to keep up the maintenance of these fields."

Not only does Fagan ask that leagues consider the stress their growing enrollment numbers place on county athletic facilities, he also says that the time has come for leagues to help defray the cost of creating new playing fields.

Fagan said he will appeal to the County Commission for more money during 2005-06 budget year to enlarge the staff, buy land and build fields. County Administrator Gary Adams, he said, has been warned about the coming request.

Fagan said fields are falling into disrepair because they are used too frequently and his staff is so overworked that some projects have stalled.

He pointed to Hill N' Dale Community Park on Boxwood Street off Cortez Boulevard. The park was to have been completed this past October but may not be done until next October.

"We are starting to catch the devil because we can't get things done," Fagan said. "It's getting frustrating."

The department has asked leagues to provide enrollment figures so that they can begin to track increases. Numbers for past years are not available for comparison, but department and league officials all agree that enrollment has spiked considerably in the last three years.

In the past, Fagan said, enrollment increases were absorbed by simply adding seasons. Now, however, soccer is scheduled year-round. Baseball, which typically starts in February and goes through August, now has a fall season. And area football leagues, which have an August through December season, now offer summer camps.

The problem was highlighted last month when the West Hernando Cougars Football and Cheerleading League was told it could no longer practice at Springstead High School because school teams needed the fields.

Fagan was able to offer the continued use of two fields at Delta Woods Park to the Cougars, which has 320 football players and cheerleaders. The fields at Delta Woods are not regulation size, however, and are prone to flooding.

"Right now, we have no place to play our football games at all," said Cougars director Bobby McFarland.

He said Fagan was working hard to make the most of the space at his disposal and that he is confident his league will have a place to play when the season starts. But he said attention should have been paid to the issue earlier.

"Somebody in that county office should have had the foresight to know that the more people you have moving in, the more park space you are going to have to create," McFarland said. "This has been an ongoing issue."

The parks department does have $750,000 set aside to purchase 50 acres for a regional athletic complex in northwestern Hernando County, perhaps in the Centralia Road area, that will be on the scale of Anderson Snow Park.

Fagan said no specific site has been chosen, but the county staff is looking hard. Construction of facilities at the site could run to $4-million, and Fagan wants the project to be part of the 2005-06 budget discussions.

County Commissioner Nancy Robinson agreed the space crunch is real. It's time to find a solution to meet the growing recreation demands of county youth, she said.

"This is an important issue, an area that we need to make more progress on," Robinson said. "You build jail cells if you don't build fields. And I would rather build ball fields than jail cells."

Will Van Sant can be reached at 754-6127 or vansant@sptimes.com

[Last modified February 12, 2005, 00:24:15]