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FACC Ball Field Eldersburg and South Carroll residents take note - a new baseball field may be in your future, courtesy of the Freedom Area Citizens' Council (FACC), the Freedom Area Recreation Council (FARC) and Springfield Hospital. Members of FACC and FARC have been working to procure a new baseball field near entrance A of Springfield. FACC president Ellen Dix had been working with Springfield CEO Paula Langmead and the county commissioners to secure this location for resident use. According to the Carroll County Times, Langmead had said residents would be able use the field for multipurpose activities in about a week's time and the official lease for the property would take six to 12 weeks to finalize. The need But what type of impact will this new addition have on area residents? "Not huge, obviously, but every little bit helps when it comes to fields," said Ross Dangel, a member of FACC. Ellen Dix said the new field would help to alleviate the shortage that Eldersburg has. This shortage is evident to Dangel. "Our area is in desperate need of more field space and the sports programs literally battle each other for field availability," he said. He added that the majority of county recreation fields are located at public schools and that Eldersburg only really had one soccer field and two baseball fields. Dangel explained that FACC jumped on the issue, while the county had been sitting idly by. "The county was not making any discernable effort to acquire these fields. as we learned from [Springfield Hospital]," he said. "FACC cut to the meat of the issue here and got things to happen relatively quickly with the commissioners' support." The field's future The condition of the field is not exactly stellar, and Dangel said the renovations could cost around $40,000. However, all those involved have not agreed upon this figure. "While we have seen the figure of $40,000 reported in the local paper, we have had no input into that estimate and are not sure how that was determined," said Director of the Carroll County Department of Recreation and Parks Jeff Degitz. He added that the only funds that would be spent would be for supplies like grass seed and fencing, noting that all labor would be done by volunteers from FARC. Dangel said in addition to the baseball field FARC had proposed that other athletic areas could be carved from the property, possibly including a soccer field and up to two more baseball fields. Degitz confirmed this and said he had discussed the idea with Langmead. Though such development will likely have a later start date. "Any additional fields that may be developed at that site would take a considerable commitment of labor and funds from volunteers and, if acceptable to Springfield, would probably happen over time and not in the immediate future," Degitz stressed. Degitz said the primary use for the fields would likely be for FARC's athletic programs, which he said explained why they were so willing improve and maintain the property with their funds and labor. In hierarchical order, he explained that priority for use of the field would go to Springfield, then FARC, and then the general public. Credit where credit's due? Even though FACC has been actively involved in the field acquisition, Dangel voiced concern that the county seemed to be minimizing the council's role in the process. He explained that the county had implied they had the ball field plan in the works for some time, which he said was not true. "In fact, in my opinion, little has been done to ease the field crunch in our area," Dangel said. "I might even be inclined to say things have gone in reverse." He mentioned that plans for a park near Century High School had recently been scrapped for a park nearly six miles away in Woodbine. He stressed that FACC was looking to in the future add more park and recreation capacity for the Eldersburg area. Links: FACC: http://www.freedomareacitizens.org/ FARC: http://freedomarearec.wikispaces.com/ Carroll County Times article: Parks around Eldersburg:
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