Players fight for ball field: Central Park Master Plan update continues to draw concern

Currently, the park’s six tennis courts are removed from the designs and one option shows doing away with the ball field in favor of a large open lawn.

Brian Haverty, president of San Mateo Little League American, and Mike Heagerty, secretary of the city’s Little League, said they created a petition in response to underwhelming attention being paid to recreational amenities at the park.

“I do feel like there was a slant towards non-recreational use. And that by not having the tennis courts and eliminating them from all of the options, they really didn’t address what people use this park for,” Heagerty said.

While Heagerty and Haverty remain concerned the heavily-used ball field doesn’t appear in one of the conceptual design proposals, others say the varied design options are part of the process.

“The goal of any master plan process is to really select the appropriate mix of amenities that best … meet the unique character of the site, as well as the needs of the user groups,” Parks and Recreation Director Sheila Canzian said previously.

Under the amendments to the master plan, the two conceptual maps that maintain the field would include reducing the size of the bleachers that all agree are never full.

The Recreation Center Option would enhance the grandstand with a storefront facade along Fifth Avenue behind home plate. The underside of the bleachers would be turned into small rooms, such as art studios, that would be accessible to the community. While Heagerty and Haverty prefer this plan, they’re also concerned that it would remove the field’s surrounding gate.

The Community Gathering Option would also reduce the bleachers but maintain the fencing and keep the field shared as a dog park during morning hours.

Haverty said the field is used by close to 3,000 people, including youth ball players and adult softball leagues. San Mateo’s Little League plays nearly half of their games at Fitzgerald Field and more than half of the time it’s occupied, it’s used for either baseball or softball, he added.

“Our membership is actually up 15 percent over the last year, youth baseball throughout the country is down about 20 percent, so why is San Mateo Little League on the increase?” Haverty said. “It’s because new residents are moving into high-density housing.”

Councilman Joe Goethals said he too grew up playing ball at Central Park and continues to have friends who play in adult leagues. Furthermore, the area is used as a dog park, it’s planned to host a temporary winter ice rink next year and supports festivals like Bacon and Brew, Goethals said.

“Because it serves all those purposes, it’s the kind of space we should absolutely be preserving. I don’t see us getting rid of Fitzgerald Field in any way,” Goethals said. “It’s such an accommodating space. I really look forward to preserving it in the future.”

However, the City Council has yet to take a crack at providing input on the master plan while comment from the public and the Planning Commission during the last meeting leaned toward focusing on seniors’ needs, creating a better connection to downtown and the park’s six tennis courts.

Those tennis courts are currently sitting atop an underground parking lot that doesn’t meet modern seismic safety standards. An online petition, which prompted a fourth conceptual design map that includes two new courts near the children’s playground on El Camino Real, was recently started to save them or at least keep them in the park. Proponents of Self-Help for the Elderly, which offers numerous services at the Central Park recreation center, showed in full force at the Planning Commission meeting to advocate for a building in the new master plan.

Although the planning process aims to update the park’s 1982 Master Plan and prepare a design that will last well into the future, the city currently does not have funds set aside for specific improvements. Still, the city is going through an extensive outreach process with public workshops and meetings that begin in March 2014 and continue with a Public Works Commission meeting Wednesday.

Haverty and Heagerty said they worry the city’s outreach isn’t getting through to enough people, particularly as working parents struggle to attend night meetings.

“Most of them don’t believe this is going on,” Haverty said. “They think ‘no way is this field going to go away. No way is it in jeopardy.’”

Heagerty said they’re now working to get more people involved in the planning process through their petition and on well-used forums like NextDoor.com.

“When we started talking about that, that’s when parents started waking up and saying ‘hey wait a minute, how can 1,200 San Mateo children not have a field for baseball?’” Heagerty said.

Will Heagerty, Mike Heagerty’s 13-year-old son, said the field is well used and often filled with multiple teams warming up.

“Now that more kids are starting to play baseball and more kids are starting to use the fields, we need more fields,” Will Heagerty said. He added the reason he plays baseball both on an extracurricular team and at school is because he “likes the complexity of the sport. And not just the physical aspect, but how much thinking goes into every throw of the ball or a swing of the bat.”

Canzian reminds the public that the planning process is ongoing and the community is encouraged to get involved. While it would be ideal to accommodate all recreational needs at one facility, Canzian previously said it’s also important to think of San Mateo’s park system as a whole.

“I believe San Mateo is very committed to providing a broad range of public recreational amenities to our residents,” Canzian said.

Mike Heagerty and Haverty said they hope the commitment to Fitzgerald Field remains as the growing city can’t afford to lose one more amenity.

“The bottom line is this is for not just the youth of our community, but future leaders of our community,” Haverty said. “They’ve got to have those memories, they’ve got to have those experiences. If they don’t, they’re at a loss.”

For more information about the Central Park Master Plan update, visit cityofsanmateo.org/index.aspx?nid=2735. The Public Works Commission is scheduled to review the conceptual designs at a meeting 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall, 330 W. 20th Ave., San Mateo.

samantha@smdailyjournal.com

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