A funding request presented to the Princeton City Council by Youth Inc., representatives Monday may lead to new collaboration among it and other park organizations in the community.
Youth Inc. board members J.J. Griggs and Torey Hammett, along with parent representative Shana Jaggers, appeared before the council Monday to ask for the city’s assistance in the pursuit of more than $200,000 in improvements at the Youth Inc. complex off Legion Drive.
Hammett said the current condition of the park, which includes baseball and softball fields for both youth and high school play, is “at the rock bottom of the scale.
“It’s not even up to average,” he told the council. “Just go out there and drive around. It’s just really unacceptable for our kids.”
Griggs said contributions from the city and county, along with participation fees and a few small grants, comprised the whole of the organization’s funding.
That money, she noted, is not enough to run the program or pay all the bills.
United Way had previously contributed to Youth Inc., but those funds have not been available for the past few years. “When we stopped getting United Way funds, our funding just went away, pretty much,” Griggs said.
The Youth Inc. park is in “dire need” of upgrading, she added.
The $202,000 list of projects will be undertaken in the next several years, depending on what funds are available.
“We’d like it to be a three- year plan, but more than likely, it’s not going to be,” Griggs said.
Chief on the list is the construction of a new playground beside Oliver Park, the complex’s T-ball field.
She said the board had identified a “really nice” set of playground equipment for about $33,000 that would accommodate 50 or more children.
The equipment could hopefully be installed with volunteer or donated labor, she said.
The Youth Inc. reps acknowledged the efforts of Princeton Playground Project organizers to raise funds to build a playground in downtown Princeton.
“It was never a competition thing. Never ever,” said Hammett.
Griggs said Youth Inc. officials had offered their complex as a site for the other playground. “It’s not a terrible walk to people from downtown,” she said.
Other projects in the plan include:
Closing off the main park road to vehicles, adding dugout buildings to two fields, laying concrete between dugouts and under bleachers;
Developing a concrete walking path around the park, replacing wooden bleachers with aluminum ones, adding a covered pavilion area with picnic tables, adding equipment boxes at each field, repairing scoreboards, adding ventilation fans to bathrooms;
Working with the American Legion to upgrade their playground facility, adding benches around the park, doing dirtwork on the fields and replacing some fences.
Work to clear out weeds and trees between the ballfields and the creek that runs along the rear of the park is already being done.
Two new batting cages have also been ordered and should be set up within the next month, Griggs said.
Mayor Gale Cherry noted the fact that the majority of city and county parks (Dotson Park, Youth Inc. and the City-County Park) all had their own boards.
The state, she said, does not look favorably on those separate entities applying for funds from the same grant sources. “It looks like we’re not working together.”
The mayor recommended the establishment of a committee, including representatives from the city, county, Youth Inc., other parks and organizations to look for ways to work together.
“Before we make a commitment, we need to look at what we want to have here,” she said.
The possibility of a merged parks department, like those in other area counties, was discussed.
“One parks manager would be ideal,” said Hammett.
Cherry said any input from the community regarding the parks situation would be welcomed. “We’ll get on it, and we need to do it quickly.”
