Letter: Against town ball fields

Dear Editor,

Earlier this month while full page pictures of the Booster Day’s parade, fireworks, hot air balloons and hot dog eating challenges graced the pages of your paper, no word of the proposed 20 acres of baseball fields in Hudson Township was mentioned.

The original ball field proposal included four ball fields with up to 32 light poles and 10 lights per pole, announcers, and up to seven night games per week. (Now they say they only want to light one field. But does anyone believe they won’t be back at a future date to light the other three fields?)

What’s the problem you ask? Well, the light poles are 80 plus feet in the air, which is a mere 45 feet higher than the highest building allowed in the town’s agriculture/residential zoning. Also, sound amplification and nighttime recreational activities are not allowed under the ordinance.

So what you ask? Imagine if any of the existing 2,900 plus ag/res homeowners in the town asked for a yard light pole eight stories in the air with 10 lights hanging off from it. Would this be news? You better believe it would be. Now imagine what eight poles per ball field will look like!

Well really who cares? There were approximately 200 township residents including eight out of the 11 adjacent landowners who submitted written and oral opposition to the plan.

If it hadn’t been for a few concerned citizens’ knocking on doors, nobody would have known of this proposal. Even with a packed town hall, three hours of testimony, and an all-out shouting match amongst the board members -- not one picture appeared in the paper. The only sanitized coverage of the July 5 meeting was a little blurb on the bottom of page 4A.

People are not against daytime baseball, children, apple pie, or community pride. But no feature reporting prior to a public meeting and limited coverage after the meeting skews the public’s perception of what is really taking place.

Hopefully there will be more responsible coverage as this proposal works its way through the next series of public meetings. Based on the outpouring of concerned citizens’ in the township, the paper should be aware of the fact that this is not yet a finished deal!

Tags: opinion, letters, baseball