A tentative traffic safety plan for Waiola Park discussed Monday night by Park District of La Grange commissioners would restrict parking along the side streets abutting the park, and support a proposed pedestrian crosswalk across 47th St.
Once the plan "is created, implemented and communicated," Park Board President Tim Kelpsas said, the La Grange Little League could begin playing games on a new, temporary ball field park commissioners approved for Waiola last December.
"Safety is crucial," Kelpsas said.
Little League President Tom Cushing announced that the new ball field would be built in the northwest corner of the park, near Stone Ave and 47th St, away from the center of the park, where it was originally to be located. The change was made in deference to neighborhood parents, who prefer their young children to play in the park's open, grassy center at a safe distance from heavily trafficked 47th St.Work on the new field was stopped April 1 when several Waiola Park residents protested the arrival of a construction crew at the park, accompanied by a bright yellow backhoe and a truck filled with sand. The residents said it was the first time they had been made aware of plans for the new field.
Park District and Little League officials subsequently held two meetings at the park with residents—a public session held April 10 and a private one last Thursday to hear their concerns.
Click here to read a story and watch a video of the public meeting.
Several of those residents were in attendance at Monday night.
Some, including Kathi Mungo, a Waiola Ave resident, who attended both meetings, voiced support for the field given the effort made by park and league officials to reach a compromise.
"I wish we would have been brought into the loop sooner," Mungo, who had been quite vocal at the public meeting in her criticism of the way park and league officials initially handled the matter. "But kids are ready to play baseball. I don't want to stand in their way."
Others, including Marilyn Ferro, who resides on Stone Ave, still believe adding the new ball field at Waiola is a bad idea.
Ferro told the park commissioners she was worried it would "transform a neighborhood park into a major baseball park."
"By adding a baseball field, you are compounding an already serious issue," Ferro said.
Noting that Waiola also hosts the AYSO league, she fears the Park District is "overloading the park with organized activities."
Ferro's husband, Chuck, is a former La Grange park commissioner who served from 1985-1991.
"Obviously, anyone who doesn't want a second field is going to be disappointed," Chris Walsh, a park commissioner, acknowledged. "I guess that is an irreconcilable situation."
But Walsh said he was willing to make a motion at the board's next meeting ordering the new field be removed once ball fields at Gordon Park, which are often unusable after heavy rainfall, are renovated over the next two years.
"At least that would serve to memorialize in an obvious way the intent of the board," Walsh said. "Sure it could be changed later on, but that would be particularly embarrassing and hypocritical for us."
Walsh, Kelpsas and Park Board Vice President Bob Ashby each personally apologized to the residents for not having made an effort to inform them last November when Cushing first proposed to the board the addition of a second field at Waiola Park
"In my opinion we just flat out dropped the ball on this one," Ashby said. "It just didn't hit us that this would be that big of a change."
The traffic safety plan discussed by commissioners Monday night would restrict parking on Stone and Waiola Aves, which border the park to the west and east respectively, to curbs along the park itself during the times ballgames are being played. Curbs in front of the homes facing the park would remain open, ensuring roadways clear enough to facilitate the additional automobile traffic generated by the games.
Unlike Sedgwick and Gordon Parks, where most of the Little League's games traditionally have been played, Waiola Park has no off-street parking.
Currently, parking is allowed along both sides of the streets, creating narrow, one-lane corridors that are a hazard to neighbors backing out of their driveways, and also to children who dart into the street from between parked cars, sometimes in response to the tune of an ice-cream truck.
In June of last year, a young girl was injured when she ran into the side of a moving car on Stone Ave. The incident occurred during a ball game, Bud Bach, a Stone Ave resident in front of whose house the accident occurred, said.
Park District Executive Director Dean Bissias noted that action by Village of La Grange officials would be required to formally enact the parking restrictions. He said he had already been in contact with Village Manager Bob Pilipiszyn regarding the matter.
Bissias also said Pilipiszyn told him a pedestrian crosswalk across 47th St had been approved for the intersection with Waiola Ave but that its installation was uncertain given the reconstruction of the road that is currently underway and will last into the summer.
The crosswalk, which would have a flashing-yellow signal that pedestrians could activate by pushing a button, would be identical to one installed last year at 47th St and 9th Ave, near Sedgwick Park.
Because the village board of trustees, which also met Monday evening in a special workshop to discuss its strategic plan, is not scheduled to meet again for regular business until May 10, park commissioners discussed an interim effort to encourage motorists attending ballgames at Waiola to adopt the new parking configuration voluntarily.
Cushing said he would send a letter to the families of all Little League participants encouraging them to park only along the parkside curbs and to seek out additional parking south of 48th St if necessary. But he stressed that the league's coaches and staff would not attempt to direct traffic or enforce the parking restrictions.
Bissias said the new ball field could be ready by next Monday.
While it is not certain when the first game might actually be played on the new field, Walsh expressed confidence that a safety plan also could be ready in as little as a week.
Walsh said he envisioned a letter "asking people to park on one side of the street, no further north than this particular place, to exercise caution with their children, even more caution than they might otherwise, inform them of the context in which the decision was made, and of the history of that area so that this isn't all just hypothetical, and remind them of their duty in a sense to their neighbors.
"I could write that in an hour," Walsh said.
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