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$50,000 grant will be used for Salem ball field improvements

SALEM — The Salem Parks Department and Salem Youth Baseball have been awarded a $50,000 grant for improvements to the baseball and softball fields.

In the parks commission’s January meeting, Michael Douglas told the commissioners on behalf of Youth Baseball that he and Interim Parks Director Kelli Pastore had been discussing opportunities for grant funding to repair and resurface the fields at Centennial and Waterworth Memorial parks. Douglas explained that standing water and the lack of drainage at multiple fields have caused issues including rainouts, reduced practice times and increased the amount of time and money required for maintenance. Douglas also said that new fields could be staked for each age group, allowing any age bracket to play games or practice, and could generate revenue through tournaments and that those events could draw people to the community which would in turn benefits the community as they spent their money at local businesses and hotels.

Douglas said that a proposal had been drafted for a $100,000 grant from the Salem Community Foundation to resurface four fields — two in Centennial and two in Waterworth Memorial — and that the community foundation board would be voting on the application on Jan. 23. The commissioners voted unanimously to support the application, and the community foundation subsequently approved a grant award of $50,000.

Commissioners also discussed a potential application for the AARP Community Challenge Grant. Pastore said that she had been approached about potentially applying for the grant to either build new pickleball courts or resurface the tennis courts at Centennial Park, and that she had contacted Asphalt Service Enterprises to provide quotes for a potential application. Pastore also said that the grant award would not be enough to complete both projects, so commissioners would need to choose which to approve.

Commission Vice President Lori Colian said that pickleball is extremely popular and that currently the parks don’t have any dedicated pickleball courts. The commissioners ultimately voted unanimously to pursue the grant to potentially build three new pickleball courts and seek other sources of grant funding to address the tennis courts.

The commissioners also discussed a request by the Beaver Creek Wildlife Center to build a chimney swift tower in Memorial Park. The tower, which is intended to combat declining populations of chimney swifts, would be built at no expense to the parks department as the wildlife center received a grant to build 12 towers in Columbiana County.

The towers are set to be 12 feet tall, standing on a roughly 2-foot-tall base for a total height of 14 feet and will have a hollow interior which allows swifts to hang and roost inside, building half-saucer nests out of twigs and saliva.

Chimney Swifts, a type of small insect eating bird native to the eastern United States originally nested in hollow old growth trees, but pressure from deforestation, habitat encroachment and increased predation caused them to begin nesting primarily within man-made structures and masonry chimneys. However, as construction trends have moved away from the types of chimneys suitable for their nesting and capping chimneys has become increasingly common populations of chimney swifts have declined, and while not designated as endangered the United States Fish and Wildlife Service has declared them a “Bird of Conservation Concern,” and “a Species of Greatest Conservation Need in 22 states.”

The commissioners ultimately voted unanimously to permit a tower to be built at Waterworth Memorial Park. This is the second such request by the wildlife center to build a tower in the city, which has been approved in recent weeks as with the utilities commission approving a request to construct one of the towers at the Salem City Lake in its Jan. 16 meeting.

The meeting concluded with an executive session for the discussion of personnel matters with no action to follow.

The parks commission will meet next at 5 p.m. Feb. 5 for a special meeting and will meet for its next regular meeting at 5 p.m. Feb. 26.

mahart@mojonews.com

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