Beach Playfield Public Hearings
On Wednesday and Thursday, July 18 and September 19, the Piedmont Recreation Commission will hear testimony to improve the utilization of Beach Playfield. Groups of adults have frequently dominated field use and discouraged use by neighborhood youths and families. Persistant neighborhood concerns have included scheduling, safety and access for casual play on weekends after organized use by the Piedmont Soccer Club/Baseball-Softball groups.
In 2007, after public hearings the Recreation Commission recommended modifications to the Beach Playfield Use Restrictions. In February 2008, the City Council approved new rules limiting adult use of the playfield by groups of 12 or more persons 21 years of age or older concurrently participating in the same activity (ies) or game (s). Again in 2010 and 2011 the Recreation Commission held public hearings on the Beach Playfield. Decisions on rule changes or modifications were not made pending the establishment of a park monitor program to document use patterns.
The Commission will now consider rule revisions at the July 18 and September 19 hearings, including a rule dividing the playfield into two equally sized “east” and “west” fields with one of the fields being designated only for children and families. Safety between the two fields has not been described.
The Recreation Commission hearings to solicit public comment will be held on Wednesday, July 18 and Thursday, September 19, 2012, at 7:30 p.m. in the City Council Chambers, 120 Vista Avenue, Piedmont, California.
Written comments may be directed to Dick Hunt, Chairman, Piedmont Recreation Commission, 358 Hillside Avenue, Piedmont, CA 94611 or mdelventhal@ci.piedmont.ca.us. The hearings will be televised live on KCOM Channel 27 and through streaming video on the City Web Site: http://www.ci.piedmont.ca.us under “online video”.
After the Recreation Commission consideration, their recommendation will be made to the City Council for any use modifications.
For further information, contact Recreation Director Mark Delventhal at 420-3073.
PCA,
In brief, the idea of the new rules is to limit the area on which the adult soccer games can occur. Efforts to limit the number of players have been ineffective so now we will try to limit their area of play. The proposed rule will be that adult games run “sideline to sideline”, the short axis of the field. This is how the women’s game plays on Sundays and takes up only half the field. The other half would be designated for kids and families. How the field will be “divided” remains to be determined but with this orientation, kids will be less likely to be hit by errant kicks on goals.
the meeting notice is at
http://www.ci.piedmont.ca.us/recreation/docs/2012-07-18_beach_playfield.pdf
Comments should be sent to Mark Delventhal at mdelventhal@ci.piedmont.ca.us
July 17, 2012
Piedmont Recreation Commission
c/o Rec. Dir. Mark Delventhal
Re: July 18, 2012 Linda Beach Hearing
Dear Recreation Commission,
Last night at the City Council meeting I raised the issue of “3rd parties” being charged some type of user fee as a means of controlling the over-use by outside groups at Linda Beach. Perhaps the Recreation Commission can consider the ramifications of my suggestion. Further, there is legal precedent in town that out-of-town users can be charged a higher fee than residents. Everyone is required to obtain an off-leash dog tag to use our designated dog run areas; residents are charged a lower fee than none residents.
Dividing the field with a barrier will limit the large group activities, but what is to prevent the “pick-up” games from taking over both sides of the field?
The last meeting had comments that Police do not know when there are several players beyond the twelve adult limit and hence cannot enforce the existing ordinance. I have seen aggressive groups of twenty or more adults playing at Linda Beach on Saturdays and believe there has been testimony of groups of up to forty at Witter. There are groups so much larger than twelve that differentiating that number is no longer an issue; it would be obvious to any reasonable person, let alone a trained police officer, that significantly more than twelve adults are playing and therefore violating the existing ordinance.
Respectfully,
Rick Schiller